Thanks to her Cloak of Aztaroth, Erza managed to pass by the guards unnoticed. After all, there were less than five Emperor realm experts in the academy and not everyone was like Sir Adam. The other emperors would not bother to focus their attentions on the entrance of a dungeon. They had more important things to do.
As Erza went deeper into the dungeon, she found it harder to breathe. The eerie atmosphere caused ones needed to keep being vigilant, even when they were taking a break. Moreover, the students needed to be able to see in the dark as most areas in the dungeon had no light. Only a few places were covered by faint lights thanks to the unique stones around them.
*shhrrriieeekk*
A demon suddenly launched a sneak attack from behind her.
Erza swiftly ducked to avoid the attack and dashed forward, before turning her body to face the attacker. Fortunately, she was very vigilant despite the fact that she was wearing the Cloak of Aztaroth.
After her talks with the Supreme Elder, Erza did not believe in absolute invisibility anymore. Everything was possible in this world. Nevertheless, she was still very surprised with the attack.
The demon in front of her did not look like the Soul Devouring Demon. From Lance description, the greater demon had a big black wolf appearance with some parts of his body were in incorporeal form. He was roughly eight-feet in height and had a terrifying pair of red eyes.
On the other hand, this demon in front of her was in a big bat form. And from his aura, the demon was still at Knight realm. Erza definitely would not be able to avoid a sneak attack from a King realm expert.
Therefore, Erza was confused about how the demon could notice her presence. Still, now was not the right time to ponder about this issue.
The demon still did not give up after his sneak attack missed the target. He quickly dashed to Erza and launched another round of attacks.
Erza was not an amateur. She had a lot of experiences fighting against a lesser demon during her time in the training hall.
'Ignite!'
Erza calmly entered her blazing form and parried the attacks with her sword.
A flame pillar rose from the ground and hit the demon. Erza did not give her opponent a chance as she went straight for a kill. Her Heavenly Flame Sword stabbed through the demon heart.
Erza then continued to head deeper into the dungeon. She was surprised about how big the dungeon was. Erza later found out it was truly not a coincidence that the demon noticed her presence as she occasionally met with similar sneak attacks along the way. Interestingly, all of them were bat demons.
When she met with the other kinds of demons, they did not notice her presence. As a result, Erza started to believe that the bat demons had greater perceptions compared with the other demon races in the dungeon.
Erza passed by several students along her way. However, she did not stop nor help them. After all, she was not a hero and she was currently entering the dungeon without the permission from the academy. She did not want to be found out and punished due to a stranger.
Furthermore, there were rescue teams consisted of several elders which were continuously looking for the students. If they still died this early, then it simply meant that they were not fated to be someones great in the future.
"Help….. Help me…." Erza suddenly heard a low shout coming from a ravine in front of her.
Erza stealthily moved closer to the edge of the ravine where she saw a girl whose leg was being eaten by a demon ape. There were bloods and signs of fighting everywhere around her.
Erza guessed that she had some comrades with her, but now all of them were already eaten by the demon or simply fled, leaving her alone.
Erza might not be a hero but she would not let someone died in front of her when she could actually save the person. The next second, she stealthily moved to the back of the demon and quickly beheaded him from behind.
"Thank you for helping me…. Who are you..?" The girl weakly thanked her.
"Your welcome. I'm Erza Valentine, a first year student in the academy. Please keep this as a secret as I am not supposed to be here." Erza honestly said while giving her a recovery pill. She then tore the girl skirt and used it to cover her wound.
"Erza Valentine?..... Are you the Flame Child of Valentine clan? The champion of this year New Students Championship?"
"Yes." Erza did not bother to hide her name as she believed that sooner or later the girl would be able to find out about her.
"I see… I promise that I won't tell anyone about this." The girl quickly understood what was going on and made her promise. She was really thankful for her help.
"I'm Yu Fei….. A friend of Beel….. Are you here for him?" The girl introduced herself. Erza was surprised when she heard that the girl was Beel's friend. She thought that Beel was the lonely type.
"Yes. Do you have any idea where is he now?"
"As most of the students fled toward the exit of the dungeon... Beel decided to distract the demon and headed deeper."
"I see, thanks! I'll go now. See you later." Erza quickly said her goodbye and moved deeper into the dungeon.
Yu Fei looked at her departure with a complicated gaze then sighed.
Two days had passed since the day Erza entered the dungeon and the academy had been notified of her absence. Sir Adam said that she was running an errand for him and should be back in a few days. If it was another elder, then other people would definitely accuse the person for abusing his power. However, since it was Sir Adam, no one dared to talk back or questioned him.
Back in the dungeon, Erza had just arrived at a place which looked like a prison. Here everything was pitch black. Without an ability to see in the dark, ones would not be able to see anything. Here should be the deepest part of the dungeon.
During these last two days, Erza had saved four other students besides Yu Fei from imminent deaths. They were all very thankful for her helps and promised not to tell anyone about her. In the end, Erza found that she was actually happy when she was able to help those people.
All of a sudden, she heard a sound of fighting in front of her. Erza quickly moved forward to see what was happening.
"Hahahaha.. I did not expect to meet a young prince in this damn prison. The heaven took a pity on me. Finally, it is the time for my Soul Devouring demonic race to rise!"