She continued getting closer to me without saying another word, each step she took bringing me closer to losing my rationality.
When she was only a few steps away from me, since I couldn't move my body at all, I did my best to focus and tried to summon the Staff of the Eternal so I might have a chance to fight back. The moment I called for the staff in my mind, I felt a sudden pain through my soul followed by it appearing in my right hand.
Seeing the staff sudden appear out of nowhere, the girl stopped and the seductive expression disappeared from her face. The fog trying to cover my mind also started clearing and Ai's voice sounded in my head right after.
[Good thing you finally came to your senses.]
I let out a sight of relied when I heard the all too familiar voice and asked: 'What happened, Ai?'
[Your consciousness fell into an illusion and I couldn't reach you no matter how much I tried. You are still trapped in the illusion, but at least I managed to make contact with you again. Look!]
As her words ended, spirit gushed out of my avatar and the girl in front of me disappeared, leaving me to stand alone in what looked like an abandoned house.
[A strong demon, who is probably Mezienne herself, has locked into your position. I suggest you abort the mission and try to leave the city.]
'But I haven't even managed to find out anything. I can't…' before I could finish my sentence, the space in front of me started twisting in a strange manner and I knew that Mezienne was on her way here.
'It appears to be too late to leave…' I said as I watched a copper-brown skinned woman slowly materialize in front of me. Her velvet-black hair crashed over her shoulders with some wild strands gently caressing her pinched-in cheekbones. Her dazzling, champagne-brown eyes were fixed on me and seemed to be shinning like two bright stars in the night sky. If not for the arrow-headed tail tangling behind her lower back, one would just take her for a simple but beautiful human woman.
I ignored her seductive appearance and started channeling my mana, getting ready to fight my way out, when she covered her mouth using one of her soft hands as she said: "Oh, and I though only your soul can be considered a treat for the eyes? You don't have to be so tense, I didn't come here planning to fight you."
"I'm sorry but I'm finding that hard to believe." I replied with an raised eyebrow, not really buying the she-demon's words.
A crisp laughter escaped her lips when she saw me getting more on guard as she replied: "I don't stand a chance against you in a direct fight and your soul is guarded by something. All the information your little group of humans have, has been given to them by me so they won't mount an attack against my city."
[She might be telling the truth. Her soul is already tier two and she's not weak by any means, but isn't that much stronger than you are.]
I frowned slightly and lowered my staff before asking: "Then what did you come here for?"
"I was curious about something and wanted to make a deal with you. If you let me peek inside your soul for just a moment so I can satisfy my curiosity, I'm willing to release a person from my control."
"If you don't stand a chance of winning against me, why would I even agree and not kill you right here and now?"
"If you don't care what happens to all the humans I have under my control, feel free to attack." She replied with a smile as a huge amount of spirit started extending out of her body and out of the floor of the house.
[Her soul is stronger than yours at the moment. She appears to be at the limit of tier 2. I don't know that much about the way she brainwashed all those people, but she might indeed have a way of killing them all.]
'Ai, what will happen if I let her 'peek' inside my soul as she wants?'
[She will be able to enter your soul space. She tried earlier but I blocked her access so she just isolated your consciousness from me. That's why I wasn't able to speak to you. Is she tries anything I can expel her before too much damage is done to your soul so you can accept the deal.]
"And what makes you think I would agree to that deal? A person is hardly worth letting you inside my soul. What if you go back on your word and decided to attack me?" Since according to Ai there was no real harm in letting her inside my soul space, I decided to try and bargain for a bit more.
She smiled and said: "Maybe not for you, but I'm sure that would make your girlfriend very happy. All the times I heard her cry next to her mother's sleeping body almost broke my heart. Hehe"
Once she mentioned Anna and her mother, I knew this negotiation was over, and so did she judging by the ever increasing smile on her lips.
'Ai, let her inside.' I said in my mind as a sigh escaped my lips. In the next moment, I felt a strong spirit covering my body and in couple of seconds my body disappeared from the city and appeared just outside it.
'Ai, what happened?' I asked but I didn't have the time to wait for an answer as Mezienne appeared in front of me and said: "I've already released your girlfriend's mother from my control. Don't come to my city anymore. I won't interfere with your business as long as you don't interfere with mine."
Her words made me even more confused.
"You are controlling most of the humans in the northern continent. There's no way I won't come back for you and let you keep your mind control over them."
"I only did that because my lord ordered me to and not because I wanted. If you manage to kill him, I'll release them all from my control. I have no interest in a bunch of weak minded humans anyway."
Her words stunned me once more. I couldn't understand what she was thinking at all. She could have easily blackmailed me to look inside my soul instead of making a deal and now she's telling me that as long as I deal with her lord, she'll release all the humans from the mind control. All of it seemed quite illogical to me, but I decided to at least try to find out some more information from her since I came here.
"Who is that lord of yours?"
"Oh, I forgot you humans don't know. He's the one leading all of our demon race, Demon Lord Xoroz. He also ordered all of his generals to head to the surface and conquer it from the human race. Me and my clan didn't really agree to this war, but since he can kill any of us with the wave of his hand and we would very much like to continue living, we had no chance but to agree in the end. Good luck and if you manage to win this war, please remember what happened today and give me and my clan some leniency." She said before teleporting away without another word. Her expression as she said the last words sounded more like she already knew that they lost the war…
'Ai, what was that?' I asked as I kept staring at the place Mezienne just disappeared from.
[She didn't appear to be lying. Also, when she entered your soul space, she just gave the dark space inside a look before she left. It seems that was the only thing that interested her.]
'At least I didn't make the trip in vain and got some information about the one behind all of this. I wonder if there are other demons that have been forced to attack by this demon lord, the same way she and he clan did…' everything I learned from Mezienne brought me a new perspective on the whole war…
[It's possible, but you can't forget that most demons are still cruel beings who think of humans as nothing more than food. Most of them are probably here willingly and people like Mezienne are quite rare, that is considering she didn't lie to us and has another plan altogether.]
'I don't think she did, but we'll just have to see how things play out in the future. For now I guess I should head back and let the others know what happened. Too bad she just left before I had the chance to ask about the world's core condition.'
Saying that, I covered my body with a layer of dark mana because I was still naked and teleported inside the main hall of Anna's house. The others were already there and turned to look at me with weird looks as soon as I appeared.
"Why are you back so soon? Did they discover you?" asked Anna as she carefully looked over my body to check if I was injured.
"Mezienne did, but it's a long story and I want to check something first. Anna come with me, the rest of you stay here." As my words ended, I gave Anise and apologetic look and walked with Anna up the stairs.
"Is everything all right?" asked Anna worried as she followed after me.
"Mhmm." I nodded and didn't say anything further. I just wanted to make sure Mezienne kept her end of the deal before getting her hopes up.
Seeing us stop in front of her mother's room, Anna looked more confused but didn't ask anything else as she followed me inside.
I approached Anna's mother, who was still under a sleeping spell, and asked Ai: 'Do you feel anything different?'
[I don't know. You will have to wake her up to know for sure.]
I didn't know any spell that might wake her up, but I figured a healing one will do and I turned towards Anna: "Can you cast a healing spell to wake her up?"
Anna nodded and cast a healing spell. The spell covered both of their bodies in a golden light. When the light receded, her eyelids trembled slightly and she opened her eyes.
She looked lost and confused as she looked between me and Anna, but she didn't start screaming and panicking as in the past so that was a good sign.
"Madam, do you remember anything?" I asked to grab her attention. She looked at me for a good moment before turning towards Anna as he slowly parted her lips to speak: "…Anna?!.."
A smile appeared on my lips as I turned towards Anna only to see her frozen on the spot with tears continuously falling down her cheeks.
"I'll give you two some time alone." I said before standing up. I gave Anna a kiss on her cheek, at which she didn't react at all, and started heading towards the door. As I closed the door behind me, I head a loud cry from behind, but just smile and walked towards my room. After grabbing some clothes for my self, I walk out and started heading downstairs.
Seeing me coming down the stairs, Anise asked: "So, will you tell us what happened now? Also, where is Anna? "
I nodded and sat down next to Anise before I started telling them everything that happened inside the city. Once I was done, Lysa asked: "So, this Mezienne isn't actually evil?"
I shrugged and said: "I don't really know, but at least she appears to be better than the rest of the demons I met. She also said that she won't interfere with us as long as we don't bother her or the city she is occupying, which I think it's a good deal."
Lysa nodded in agreement, but Anise added: "She might still be planning something else. We should not let out guards down and still keep an eye on her."
The others also nodded before Oliver asked the most important question: "Now that Mezienne is also out, which demon general are we going after?"
Everyone turned to look at me, but I was just as stumped by his question as the rest.
"Why don't we go directly for their underground home and take care of that demon lord?" asked Velor all of a sudden.
Lysa slapped the back of his head as she said: "Is your brain made out of mush? If even the demons generals are scared of him and we don't know how many exact demons are down there do you really think we stand a chance?"
I nodded at Lysa's words and said: "I guess we can only go for either Vannoth or Azrin. The problem with Vannoth is the lesser spirit he houses inside his soul while with Azrin is the amount of demons inside the city right now, after the last attack."
"I think we should finally put the battalion to use. I've been sparring with the people here and watching them train and I can really say they are a force to reckon with. We can launch a full scale attack on Azrin's city together with the Blessed Battalion. They will deal with the demons inside the city while we take care of Azrin himself."
I didn't like the plan of a full out assault since Vannoth could also join at any moment, but I had to admit it was indeed the best plan yet. Turning towards the others, I asked: "What do you guys think?"
"I also think Oliver's plan is good and it's not like we have many other choices." Said Lisa to which Velor also nodded.
"Ethan, do you think we can construct a teleportation device that can bring people from the southern continent all the way here? Since most of our wizards have returned from Bastion back to the academy, I figured we could also bring them to increase our forces in a full front assault on Kazim City." Asked Anna with a pensive look.
"Maybe we could, but I don't think that's a good idea. There's the fact that their levels are quite low when compared to the people on the northern continent. There's also the fact that we don't know if which ones we can trust, since at least the ones that specialize into souls must have been aware of what the Grand Duke was planning at Bastion City but chose to stay silent about it.."
Anise nodded and didn't say anything else.
"We'll see what Anna thinks about it as well when she comes out, but I think we should give her some time to spend with her mother. How about we meet up tomorrow and settle on a plan then?"
The others nodded and everyone went on their own ways, while I went upstairs to my room together with Anise and we waited for Anna to return.