"Do you feel a sense of power?"
Aza'zel responded half-heartedly. In the recent five years of mingling with the girls who grew up on farms managed by human scum, some of their temperaments shaped his character, especially since he had no specific shade to his personality, to begin with.
In the past, he might have been a clean sheet of paper with a bit of obedience, patience, and slyness scribbled over it. This was brought about by Rebecca and Caidie in that rundown mansion throughout his childhood, and a hint of a sharp edge brought about by the nuisance parked in the rear of his head.
"Far from powerful," Wendy shook her head with a bitter smile. "At the very least, I qualify as a tool to be used by the aristocrats… Just like Kane—you must've heard of him?"
Aza'zel raised an eyebrow, recalling something as he said, "Right… The people from Shadows suffered an ambush back there. Was that your doing?"
Aza'zel wasn't low on intelligence, and thinking how narrow and interconnected the passageways of this dungeon are, it wasn't far from the realms of possibility that Wendy ambushed the members of Shadows.
"You knew?" Wendy was a little surprised, chuckling thereafter as she said, "Pity… That whole thing was orchestrated because I intended to capture Mask, perhaps I could have some leverage on that big guy Kane by holding her hostage."
Wendy sighed, rolling her eyes as she leaned sideways on the wall while crossing her arms beneath her bosom. Thinking about it, there was no way this young boy's guardian followed him here, right?
She cast a deep look past Aza'zel, peering into the swirl of miasma behind him as she thought to herself: better not make any rash moves. Just in case, might as well detour from this passageway.
Aza'zel didn't know whether Mask was lucky or unlucky, but he wasn't interested in the feud between the two groups as they squabbled for soup and meat from the hands of the aristocrats.
Wendy seemed to think about something as she asked, "Why don't you join my team? I have a few squads under my name, and although we don't compare with Shadows, we don't lose out on heavyweights with me around to keep Kane pinned down."
Aza'zel was stunned for words, a moment of silence ensued before he shook his head and picked up his feet, trodding his way past Wendy without a hint of caution whatsoever.
"I don't have the time for such pity games," Aza'zel said, his voice low and almost mockingly jesting in tone. "I've yet to become that desperate, and even if I was… I'd invest that energy somewhere worthwhile."
Wendy's black eyes glimmered with a tri-colored sheen as she contemplated her options.
As Aza'zel walked past, her venomous glare took in the circumference of his small neck and whether she could lock it off with a single swing of her thin scimitar. Then, she wondered whether or not this was worth it.
Aza'zel suddenly stopped by her side, alarming the woman to snap clear of her thoughts as the young boy said, "A friend in the dark… Hm, although I can't join your team, perhaps we can work something out as friends in the future."
Wendy grew a little interested.
"What do you have in mind?" she asked.
"I've just registered my new squad, we can certainly work something out in the future since I've already established some enmity with the Shadows group."
Aza'zel was no idiot, and he knew that despite his strength and the strength of his entourage of seven, they didn't have the resources to contend with both the Thorns group and Shadows group at the same time. Since these two camps were at war, the small squads could no longer maintain a neutral position in the middle, and they'd be drawn into the crossfire sooner or later.
Wendy understood this principle just as well as Aza'zel did, and so, a smile curled on the corner of her lip as she asked, "Aren't you going to display some sincerity, my friend? I'm a group leader after all, with many squad leaders under me."
Aza'zel thought for a moment and responded while pointing in the direction in which he walked his way over, saying, "Keep heading down that route and you'll find Mask, approximately one hour away if you maintain a steady pace. Though, I've already spent a bit of energy to keep her alive, so you better not waste my efforts."
Wendy was shocked for a moment, asking in disbelief, "You mean to say she was with you all this time?"
"Not with me," Aza'zel interjected. "She followed me of her own volition, but she was knocked down by an Abomination. If you don't speed up, the people from Shadows might pick her up… Consider this as a display of my sincerity, and I'll be waiting for some reciprocation."
Aza'zel finished talking and continued onward into the miasma that grew denser with each step. Wendy was speechless for a moment, abruptly shouting toward the darkness after her mind settled down, "At the very least, tell me the name of your squad!"
Wendy stared long and hard at the pitch-black miasma while awaiting a response.
"Watchers," echoed out the voice of Aza'zel, though it was quickly swarmed by the heavy miasma in the air.
Wendy mumbled the name to herself before breaking into a smile. "Don't worry, friend… That woman is worth much more alive than dead anyway."
Then, she hopped off into the darkness. All the while, she thought to herself: I forgot to tell him that the remnants of Shadows are on my tail… Well, he didn't look so weak and fragile to me anyway.
Clueless as he was, with the faint tinkling sounds of evil blood pearls clicking into one another in his bag, Aza'zel's thoughts were a whirl with speculations for the future.
He hadn't expected the influence of the myriad races to inflate so far within less than twenty years of expansion. Now, when he thought back to that mesmerizing holy aria that covered the entire Lower Abyss, he couldn't help but marvel, as well as shiver, at the notion of what kind of existence stood behind such a phenomenon.
To what limit of evolution must one reach to wield such power? He thought to himself.
"That's far too distant from the current me," Aza'zel laughed and shook his head, as his current targets were the Seven Earls and their respective armies. These guys were no more than less-than-average heirs sent down the Lower Abyss to temper themselves, yet they could so easily control the lives of millions with a word or a gesture.
Aza'zel spoke gently, "You want to explore the dangers of the seven Evil Grounds and four Forbidden Grounds? Do they wish to explore the evils of my abyss? How brave… Haha…"
His laughter carried hints of anger, displeasure, anxiety, and madness…
The more negatively his thoughts wandered, the more the whispers in his head intensified.
Aza'zel wasn't aware of it yet, but the blood he so lavishly consumed to better his constitution and satiate his thirst… It was subtly, albeit surely, influencing his mindset…