Levi wanted to familiarise himself with not just the world but the beings within it as well. He wished to kidnap one of them and make them spill but Lilith reminded him once again about how weak he was.
The people below started feeling like an inconvenience. He couldn't train the way he wanted. He had to cut off Gi completely and training his actual physical body.
[I don't think that's a bad thing. A growing boy needs a strong body.]
"Danger ahead! I repeat, danger ahead! Men, formation!" The general shouted the orders.
Princess Valerie had a look of excitement on her face. She hoped that the being the General had sensed was the demon. She didn't remember anything about him, only that he was a head taller than her and those blood red crimson eyes.
She didn't see anything else because of how scared she was. Running through the forest for days thinking he was after her every second didn't help with remembering details either.
[Are you going to help them?]
"Now why would I do something so stupid?"
[Master, you do stupid things all the time. In any case, it's a good thing you're staying out of it because they're all going to die.]
"What!?" His heart stopped.
[Just a joke master. But you should've seen your heart skip a beat, you love acting like you don't care huh?]
"Lilith, fuck off kindly."
[Tough crowd...But they will die if they keep on going. This is the part of the forest you haven't investigated thoroughly and I'm pretty sure that this where the strongest sins reside.]
He observed the ground carefully until the Sin came into view. If he had to give it a name it would be a hippo with two majestic horns.
"The number of horns is their ranking isn't it?" Realisaton hit him like a ton of bricks.
He'd only encountered one that had a single horn and since he was fighting them during the day he was beaten within an inch of his life, he never went looking for it again. This was also why he needed to breakthrough.
"They're doomed then." He said ripping a string of cloth from his clothes and putting his hair into a ponytail.
He didn't want a repeat of last night. He seriously needed a haircut.
[Not exactly, but it'll take everything in their power to get through this. If they're a solid team, they have little to worry about.]
"Princess, run, run back and never come back here again. That Sin there, it's nothing we're equipped to handle."
But the Princess was a stubborn mule, she stood her ground. She along with her men, at the same time, made those strange finger gestures. Whisps of white shards jumped out of their beings.
The more that came out, the more the manifested soul took shape into echoes. Levi looked intently on the Princess' echo, it towered over everyone of the men's.
"Is that, is that a dragon?"
[Seems like this girl is a gate above you.]
He didn't take too kindly to that. It was a very bitter pill to swallow. Just a year ago she was a helpless little girl but now she had surpassed him, that information felt like a cold poisonous dagger through his heart.
"She has to be marked? How else is a little kid able to have that much power?" He declared scanning every inch of her body.
[I doubt it, markings are a very big deal. Gods rarely do them. It could just be natural talent coupled with a god that favours her.]
"I can see the golden runes on her..." Levi sighed, surprised at how Lilith couldn't detect them. "Above your pay grade?"
[Then this might get very dangerous.]
"You're overreacting, there's eleven of them and one enemy."
[I mean for the enemy or anything within the forest, including yourself.]
"Lilith what aren't you telling me?"
But she kept her mouth shut. The fight below had started, Levi couldn't believe it because even though there were eleven of them, they were getting handled.
The two horned large Sin rammed into their echoes like they were absolutely nothing. The people below were uncoordinated, either they weren't used to front lines or they didn't usually fight together.
"Surely the King wouldn't let his child explore this forest with such a team?"
The soldiers surrounded her, which Levi could see that it was useless. Having your echo out was a risk especially when the opponent was stronger.
Realising this, Levi chuckled, "this world must not like humans very much. Not only are they at risk with their echoes but they're at risk with their Hubs too."
[Oh master. The world always balances these things out, you never want to enter a beings Hub that uses their soul to control Gi. Unless you can fight off millions of echoes at the same time.
Within themselves there are no limits with how many echoes they can manifest. So you can imagine, the higher the gate the more echoes they can manifest.]
"And you weren't gonna tell me until I found myself in that predicament?"
[Experience is the best teacher.]
"Or the best killer." He said look at one of the men's echo being pierced by the horns and that damaged directly translating to the man.
The echo shuttered into a million pieces, the man was left bleeding from just about everywhere—even his tears were crimson.
"Brutal."
The creature must've weighed a thousand pounds, yet its speed and agility were far greater than the slimmer soldiers it was going against. Upon wounding one beyond healing, it moved to the next victim.
"Johnny, take the princess and get out of here."
Silence. There was no answer. When the General turned it was only him, the princess and three other individuals.
He was about to take matters into his own hands when he felt pressure almost crashing his skull and everything was stolen by the unconscious mind. The general was a big man, so his fall came with a deafening thud.
[Master, you'll have to stop that girl or else. The mark of the Zodiacs can be triggered by a lot of different things, if you feel that you can't win or emotions so overwhelming that you can't contain them. But it's never really worth it, you turn into a ticking time bomb and there's no guarantee that the user will be spared.]
"Is that right..."