Somewhere late in the evening the dwarf came back with Elisa and Nathan. The both of them were pretty surprised about the change in my appearance but did not think much of it.
Though they had it good in the city, they had realised that it would no longer be as safe as it used to be. Soldiers were patrolling the streets to pick out any traitors. Those supposed traitors would no longer be held captive for later questioning but would be publicly executed instead. With me free they could no longer risk any servants of me walking around.
Also, the sheer amount of people would attract more demons. Tough they were able to fend of the horde last time. More were to come, and no one could say for how long Atlantis could remain standing.
The dwarf reached out to me, some worry was vaguely apparent on his face. "When was the last time you ate?"
I just shrugged. "To be honest, I don't really know. Why do you ask?"
"As you know we will be leaving in a few hours. We don't know what we will find on the outside. I think it will be in our best favour if you had a proper meal before that. I know you have more self-control than most other demons. But pushed too far over the edge and you will become just as dangerous to be around as them." He exclaimed. "Most of us are already asleep. No one will notice it If you are gone for a few moments. Why don't you… clear the way?"
A wide smile formed on my face as I understood the hint that the dwarf gave me.
"Sounds good to me. I will be back soon!"
I kicked off the ground and flew up. As soon as I was separated from the ground, I made myself disappear.
As I made my way over the chaotic streets, I could see some red lights lit up under me. these were the compasses and crystals the search parties were holding. Not that those really mattered anyways. They were scattered and had not enough men to take me down even if they tried. I would deal with those when we would officially leave.
No, the ones I was after were those guarding the gates. These were battle hardened soldiers ready to give their lives to keep everything out. And this time, in.
I landed on one of the roofs close to where the ruins ended but just out of reach of the alarms system. These men were tired and hazily looked out over the fields before them. some were even sleeping so that they could take their turns of standing guard later.
It was not a good idea to attack them. yes, they were easy prey right now. but they would soon be replaced by other soldiers to keep their performance as efficient as possible.
I remained unmoving to the point where I could actually have been mistaken for a blood red statue. I had seen their adder stones. But even with those, humans had a hard time seeing something that did not move. Take for example a bird sitting in a tree verry far away. You would just look over it without even noticing it is there as you pass by. But if the bird hops around and flaps its feathery wings, your attention would be drawn to it, and you will see the bird.
Finally, the new unit replaced this one. At first, they were all on high alert, scanning the area for any sings of me. but after some time passed, they grew bored and started chatting. Tough it seemed that only those with less experience engaged in this activity.
I slowly came closer. My clawed feet barely made a sound on the grass floor. Until eventually the alarm system started to hum, and the area was engulfed in a red light. They had certainly improved after I had passed this gate before.
The soldiers loaded their weapons and took their positions. But I still waited for the right time to strike.
I could probably overpower them with sheer force at this point. But the chance was verry small that I would get an opportunity like this again. I decided to have at least a little fun with them.
With all of them focused on my direction they had lost sight of the newer recruits in their middle. I chose one of the most weak-minded. Despite the distance I managed to infiltrate his mind with little to no effort.
Now that I had his body fully under my control, I made him quietly slip away. The red lights actually made great shadows that I could easily hide my new human puppet in. after he was far enough to my opinion, I clocked him in illusions as well and made him hide in the ruins along with me.
I swiftly let the ground sink in, in certain places then turned around and retreated.
Back in the ruins I let go of the control I had over the human and appeared before him. He screamed and tried to go back to the troops, but I broke his arms and legs. I found that the screams of someone in complete terror could easily surpass those that I could have forced the man to make if I had held onto the control, I had over him. After this I climbed back onto one of the roofs and waited while hiding in illusions again.
Mainly due to the screaming, the soldiers noticed that one of them had gone missing. It did not take long before they had formed a small unit consisting of four people to try and retrieve their missing soldier. They had all collectively agreed that if they would not come back, no one would look for them. guarding the gate was top priority.
I was a bit disappointed about that. I had hoped that they would keep sending people and that I could kill them one by one, but I would just have to do it with what I got.
When the people finally arrived one of them stopped and pulled the other who continued to walk back.
"Stop it. it will be better if we go back now."
"But we can't leave him here, can we?"
"of course, we can you idiot. Can't you see that this is a trap? The demon wants us to try and help him so it can kill us when we don't expect it."
"But leaving him here wouldn't be human! he is one of us. If we can't help him than let's kill him at least so the demon can no longer use him again."
"There is no point in dying here. we leave now."
The man sighed, yet still tried to be warry of any movement in the area. In the meantime, the wounded soldier still continued to beg for help.
"Look I know that this is your first mission. But the reports said that this is still a young demon less than three decades old. It just wants to play a game. And there is no use in dying while just playing a demon's game. Do you understand?"
This quite annoyed me. now that I had lured these humans here, I was indeed planning on toying with them while killing them one by one. But this one had to ruin that.
Now that they were already aware of what I wanted to do, there was no longer any fun in actually doing that. I would just kill al of them and then go back to the others.
But right before I wanted to strike, I noticed something odd about the human that wanted to leave the man behind.
The scent of the human was off, as if mixed in with something else. Also, the way his soul manifested in his body was quite unusual.
Normally the soul would take the form of the body while the colour and state of the soul gave away its nature.
But this one did not completely follow those lines. The shape was unstable as if the body was soon going to change. Then I finally saw what was going on. This human had the potential to grow antlers.
In fact, I had seen something like this before. The exact same thing had happened with some of the wendigos. Usually, they would keep their human shape and only grow taller and more fragile. Wendigos with these deer like traits actually shouldn't exist. Yet I had seen those in the world where I had met Leonor.
With this I decided to just kill all of them apart from this man so that I could properly investigate the source of this phenomenon.