Volume 1, Chapter 8

The silver-haired girl who had sent her to the Ancheka Continent,

To be honest,

Yumo couldn’t recall what she looked like now.

It wasn’t that her memory was poor. Rather, that specific memory had inexplicably vanished from her  mind. Now, whenever she tried to remember that silver-haired girl, all she knew was that she possessed stunningly beautiful, long silver-white hair.

Also, her chest seemed to be quite large,

Everything else was a blur,

Her features, her voice…

Though she wasn’t sure why, Yumo suspected that for some unknown reason, the girl had modified or sealed her memories while she was being reconstructed…

But,

None of that really mattered.

Yumo’s ultimate goal was to help the ‘Main Character Group’ complete their Trial Mission. Once finished, she would regain her freedom. According to the silver-haired girl, once the task was done, she could return to her original home!

Thus, to achieve this goal, Yumo had gone to great lengths over the past few centuries.

The final stage of the trial was to kill her, specifically, to destroy the Hall of Ten Thousand Demons and completely liberate the continent from the shadow of the Abyssal Demons.

Well,

Even if the Hall of Ten Thousand Demons was destroyed, her consciousness would remain. It was just a formality.

Before reading the mission details given by the silver-haired girl, Yumo had once speculated:

Since the ultimate goal is to destroy the Hall of Ten Thousand Demons, shouldn’t I just lead the ‘Main Character Group’ straight inside? Letting them tear the place down would be much easier, wouldn’t it?

However, Yumo quickly discarded that idea.

The reason was simple.

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About four hundred years ago, while she was pondering this, a few Heroes from the Church happened to break into the Hall of Ten Thousand Demons. Yumo decided to use them as a test to see exactly how difficult it would be to destroy the Hall.

Of course, she had stationed several demon king tier entities nearby. If things went south, they would rush out to protect her and grind the Heroes into dust…

As it turned out,

Arranging for demon king tier protectors was completely unnecessary.

Those three saint tier Heroes spent seven days and seven nights launching a relentless barrage of attacks! And yet, they couldn’t even chip away a single brick or tile!! In the end, after unleashing a massive combined attack, they exhausted their very souls and dropped dead on the spot…

Yumo had watched the whole thing in utter disbelief…

And they dared to call those ‘mighty attacks’? Please.

After that, Yumo gave up on her unrealistic plan. After all, the Main Character Group would start at around the fifth tier; their attacks against her wouldn’t even register as a tickle.

Therefore,

She had to train them! She had to make them grow! She had to let them level up! Oh, and she had to provide them with equipment too~

As the saying goes:

A boss who doesn’t know how to raise a protagonist will never see salvation.

Ordinary fifth tier Abyssal Demons wouldn’t be much of a challenge for the Main Character Group, making them pointless encounters. On the other hand, demon king tier Abyssal Demons were too powerful and would kill them instantly. If they died right away, the game would be over!

A sixth tier Abyssal Demon might be a decent opponent. But she couldn’t just keep sending mindless trash their way, could she?

To be a qualified villain, one needed not only strength but also intelligence.

To ensure the Main Character Group grew smoothly, Yumo had been planning to create ‘Minor Bosses’ who possessed both power and intellect to serve as experience points for them. Combined with a few other reasons, Yumo decided to let the intelligent races of the continent absorb power and become these Minor Bosses.

She had begun her experiments for this very purpose.

However,

So far, the results remained unsatisfactory.

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“Sigh, there’s no other way. To make sure the Main Character Group can successfully kill me, I have to keep working hard~~” Yumo lamented helplessly.

“I’m heading to the lab. I’ll leave this area to you, Li Mo.”

With that, the crimson ball of light and the purple crystal vanished from the hall simultaneously.

Li Mo: “…”

Having listened to Yumo’s lament, Li Mo did not respond in her usual manner. Instead, she hugged her legs and silently sank into the lake.

More importantly, the wolf girl’s expression had lost the docility she showed in front of her mother; it was now filled with a murderous aura. Her wide-eyed crimson gaze was laced with ferocious bloodshot veins, and her sharp claws dug deep into her own legs.

The girl seemed to be suppressing a profound internal rage.

For a moment, the lake was tinged with a hint of blood.

Unfortunately, Yumo, who was entirely focused on improving the crystals didn’t notice the wolf girl’s ‘little mood’…

As night approached,

High above the eastern part of Deepwinter Forest.

A black-haired man wearing black light armor and a deep-blue feathered crown was flying through the clouds atop a majestic, sturdy griffin. He used a telescope to observe the situation in the forest below.

Recalling the sight he had witnessed earlier, the man couldn’t help but feel a wave of relief.

“Speaking of which, that thing chasing Arkate earlier… that giant white wolf…”

That size,

That aura, and the frigid air surrounding it…

“That must have been a demon king tier, right?”

There were only six demon king tier Abyssal Demons in the entire continent. He hadn’t expected to encounter one of them today.

Fortunately, the Marquis had placed three layers of perception-shielding magic on him. Otherwise, if that Abyssal Demon had noticed him and fired an Annihilation Cannon his way, wouldn’t he have been turned to ash instantly? An Abyssal Demon of that level could easily wipe out an entire nation!

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As expected of the Marquis, his foresight was as sharp as ever!

While feeling relieved, the black-haired man’s expression gradually grew solemn.

The Marquis’s order was to confirm Arkate’s status.

He had to ensure the boy was devoured by Abyssal Demons and died in an agonizingly cruel way. If Arkate happened to avoid an encounter with the fiends, the man’s task was to lure one out or take action himself. Regardless, Arkate could not be allowed to return alive. Thus, when Arkate was thrown into the forest to fend for himself, the man had stayed hidden high in the sky to watch.

After seeing him being toyed with by the Abyssal Demon, the man judged that Arkate was definitely a dead man.

However…

He had been tracking them, but then?! How did the target suddenly disappear?! He vanished without a trace! What was going on?!

Moreover, not just Arkate; even that terrifying Abyssal Demon was gone!

This left the man utterly bewildered. He couldn’t understand how two such obvious targets could just vanish. He could excuse the Abyssal Demon; as a demon king tier entity, its movements weren’t something a sixth tier like him could track. But what about Arkate?!

He was just a fourth tier brat?!

I am a prestigious sixth tier powerhouse, an S-Class mercenary! How could I have lost him?!

After searching the skies and finding no sign of Arkate, the man began to question his very existence. Just then, a bold hypothesis popped into his mind.

“Wait?!”

Suddenly evading his perception and disappearing? Could he have passed through some kind of barrier?

According to the Church’s intelligence,

The Hall of Ten Thousand Demons was surrounded by an unknown barrier that prevented outsiders from detecting its existence?!

Could it be!!

In an instant, the man’s face lit up with extreme excitement. The confusion in his mind was swept away, replaced by an inexpressible ecstasy.

“Hahaha!! If I can bring this intel back and sell it to the intelligence agencies or the Church, I’ll be set for the rest of my life!!!”

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At that thought,

The smile on his face grew even more radiant.

However,

As the saying goes, extreme joy turns to sorrow,

Just as the man was in the throes of his delight, a voice as clear and melodic as a silver bell suddenly reached his ears:

“Bring it back? I’m sorry, but Mother has no intention of letting you leave.”

Huh?!

What was that?! A little girl’s voice?

How was that possible?

This was Deepwinter Forest! How could there be a little girl here!

“Who’s there?!”

The man’s face paled instantly as a sense of foreboding surged through him. He hurriedly drew the sword at his waist and whipped around toward the source of the voice. However, upon turning, he realized with horror that the source wasn’t a little girl at all.

Instead, it was a massive phantom that blotted out the sky.

“?!!”

“Wha-what?!”

Before the man could grasp the situation,

And before he could even scream,

Amidst a flurry of emerald light, the S-Class top-tier mercenary and his griffin beneath him were crushed into mincemeat by a colossal set of claws…