CHAPTER 102: PREPARE WELL BEFORE THE HUNTING

"There she goes again! This girl doesn’t have an ounce of patience in her. Why the hell did you kill him. We could have gotten more information out of him!" Lamia yelled at Carmilla, furious on her impatience.

"Because he killed my parents in front of my eyes!" She screamed out, her eyes moist being relieved on finally avenging her parents.

Lamia went silent. She didn’t know that this boss was the murderer of her parents.

"I...I apologize." She bowed slightly, sincerely asking for forgiveness.

Carmilla didn’t say anything, she just turned around, hiding her tears from them.

"Don’t fret. There are still ways to find more information." Ames said, trying to ease the tension between the two of them.

He moved towards the body of the gang member killed by his scorpio. Standing in front of his body, he pulled his ’Book of Death’ out. the book levitated in front of him as naraka moved out from him towards it.

The book opened and pages started turning by themselves. It stopped on a page with a black runic circle drawn on it, and in bold letters the name of the spell ingrained on the pages was ’memoir of the dead’.

Naraka moved out of Ames and formed the same runic circle drawn in the book, just above the body of the gang member. His body started floating and passed through the runic circle. And when he came out from the other side, his eyes opened wide, they were completely white, devoid of any pupil and iris.

Strands of black naraka pierced inside his brain through the temples and the other ends of the strands pierced through Ames’s.

Ames eyes rolled back too as only the whites were visible. The strands of naraka started glowing as the light travelled from the gang member to Ames, and slowly the head of the gang member started shrinking and withering, and slowly it crumbled into dust.

The strands of naraka vanished and Ames’s eyes turned back. The book closed by itself as Ames put it back in his ring.

"What kind of spell was that leader!?" Zankoku asked, his eyes glowing in reverence.

"It’s a spell of memory extraction from the dead. I wasn’t sure it would work since I used it for the first time. But...it was successful." Ames said with a smile.

"What did you find?" Lamia asked. Carmilla also turned around curiously.

"Well...I think it won’t be easy like this time. If we barge inside their bases, I don’t have the confidence to walk out alive, even with Zankoku being with us." Ames said in a serious tone.

"What level are you at now Zankoku?" Ames asked.

"I’m a mana master leader." He replied politely.

"What about you Carmilla?"

"I’m in the fifth circle."

"Hmm...me and Shatun, we can be considered to be in the third circle and Lamia is a fourth circle wizard. We have no chance right now...wait a minute, where’s Shatun?"

"He’s feasting on the hearts of the gang members below, he says he’ll become strong enough to defeat Zankoku." Lamia said as a smile spread on Zankoku’s face.

"I’ll take him anytime." He said with pride.

"Can you just skip this suspense and tell us what you’ve found?" Lamia said in an irritated tone.

"Watch your mouth girl! You’re talking to the great demon king here." Zankoku warned her in a cold voice. Lamia was frustrated even more. She scoffed at him and didn’t say anything.

"The city is divided into two zones, the outer zone where we are right now, and the inner zone, where the top criminal organizations are. There are four main organizations that control their own areas both in the inner as well as the outer zone."

"This man used to work for one of them, he’s called ’The Hound’. He’s the boss of one of the four groups. There are three more bosses, the tiger, the snake and the fox. They all are mana masters. Also, they have a few master mages and master wizards among their ranks and also hundreds of members in their organizations."

Everyone went silent. even the hot headed Carmilla understood the dangers of rushing in without any plan.

"No use then. It will basically be a suicide if we just blast in with force!" Lamia exclaimed.

"What are your commands leader?" Zankoku asked, ready to follow whatever Ames decides.

"Though they are all strong, the one point to note is that they’re not united. The four of them are in constant tussle with each other for resources and to become the leader of the city."

"Instead of force, we have to use cunning here. This constant power struggle could be an opportunity for us to take advantage of."

"And how do you propose we do that?" Carmilla finally asked as she came forward.

"The outer zones have many independent groups apart from the branches of those four powerhouses, and they don’t give much attention to what happens in the outer zone as they are busy in the inner zone struggle."

"Since we’ve wiped this group out, we’ll form our base here and build our forces as well as reputation and slowly claim the whole outer zone." Ames said.

"But wouldn’t it take a lot of time to do that? It could even take years." Lamia protested.

"We’re all criminals here, nowhere in the continent are we welcomed. And the most important thing is that we are weak. This could be a safe heaven for us and in the meantime, we’ll grow strong here."

"I believe if we are able conquer this city, then no one will be able to stop us, we’ll become a force that even the empire will think twice before messing with." Ames said with determination.

"Hahahaha!! As expected of our one true God! Spoken just like a Demon king. Haha!! You are born to rule leader, no matter where... you shall be the king!" Zankoku laughed out loud as he bowed to Ames.

"It won’t be easy though." Lamia said.

"Nothing is easy in life. You have to fight for what you want, from the small piece of dry bread to the throne of power."

"Well said leader." Zankoku smiled ear to ear. He was ecstatic seeing Ames act true to the name.

"What’s the plan then?" Lamia asked.

"We have to form an initial base of power first. Zankoku, are there other demons that have no place to go?"

"There are many leader."

"Find them and bring them here. Take two weeks, after that we start. Lamia, find all the information about the area and resources this group used to have, we’ll take it under us."

"Alright! But what will we name our group?" she asked, Zankoku and Carmilla also looked at him expectantly.

Ames went into thought. He needed a name that would define them and also induce fear when others hear it. After some thought, a smile spread on his lips as he looked up towards them.

"We’ll be the Demon Parade."