Astra and the others had finished dealing with the last hideout in Gardenia and were about to leave when darkness suddenly surrounded Astra. It was too quick for them to react.
It was getting harder and harder for Astra to breathe. Astra tried to activate magic, but failed. This had never happened to her before!
The darkness faded away to reveal a throne room with a hooded skeleton sitting on top of the throne.
"Why hath thee interrupted my slumber?" A deep voice bellowed throughout the room. "Not to mention, only sacrificing filthy souls of beastmen! Art thou making light of me?!"
Under the pressure of the creature, Astra fell to her knees. It was Astra's first time encountering such power! With a shaky voice, Astra answered,
"N-no, I am not trying offend you. I was not the one to awaken you and sacrifice souls, however, I deeply apologize. I am unaware of your great identity as I am an ignorant creature."
As Luna bowed deeply, she took a little peek at the skeleton's reaction.
The skeleton stroked its chin in satisfaction and snapped his fingers. Astra could breathe again. "I am deeply pleased with thy attitude! As such, I shall grant thy my identity. I am the Great King of Darkness Adrion!"
Astra was shocked. This skeleton was actually Adrion! He is known as an existence that brought terror to the lands around him. Anything that he touched would shrivel and wither. Disease spread in the places that he visited. He truly was a terrifying man!
"But, were you not defeated by the Hero Alexander a thousand years ago?"
Hearing this, Adrian's face became twisted.
"Bah! That mongrel wouldn't have defeated me if it weren't for thy cowardly tactic of using a relic of the Death God! I was finally revived, so I shall kill that coward!"
Astra timidly called out,
"Um... if I may interject, humans can't live for over a thousand years..."
A flash of rage appeared in Adrian's eye sockets. "How dare that impudent man die before before I could kill him!" As Adrian said that, sparks appeared around him and Astra jumped back a little in surprise.
After a while, the sparks died down and Adrian seemed... sullen? "What should I do now that he's gone... My life has no meaning!"
His reaction was like that of a young boy who was disappointed that his friend couldn't play with him. Looking at his cute reaction, Astra laughed.
"Pfft...."
"Wh-what are doing, you impudent human?"
"Laughing at your adorable reaction."
"What?! A-adorable? Me? The Great King of Darkness?"
"Yep! Also, I'm an elf, not a human."
"Elf?! Surely you jest! Those arrogant creatures usually never come out of their forests!"
Astra pulled down her hood to reveal her ears. "How rude! I'll have you know that I'm not arrogant! If you really are the Great King of Darkness, shouldn't you be able to know such a trivial thing?"
"Y-yeah! It's such a trivial thing that there was no need to find out!"
Astra looked skeptically at Adrian. Why were all the seemingly powerful people that she met so foolish?
"Haaa.... whatever. If you don't have a purpose, why don't you join my organization? It's called 'Phantoms of the Night' and the purpose is to eliminate dangers of the world."
"Truly? Am I not a danger as well?"
"If you don't plan on harming the world, then yes."
Astra didn't care who joined her organization unless they had plans of harming the world, her family, or other people. Although their current objective is to eliminate the Demon Cult from the world, Adrian wasn't part of the Cult and if he could help with their objective, then Astra would welcome him with open arms.
"But, could you please do something about you appearance? Surely, the Great King of Darkness can alter his appearance."
"Who doth thy think I am?" Adrian snapped his fingers and a handsome youth with black hair and striking gold eyes appeared. "Such a thing is merely a simple task to me!"
And with that, Astra gained a powerful new member for her organization.