Almost all of the Sunlight Warrior and Neo-Demons were carrying at least two demons as they flew to the base, as for the enormous body of the Goristro, it was carried by the three Brain Golems.
It did not take long for the Daybreak army to reach their underground base, and once they reached there, Dante used the three Brain Golems to affect the minds of those demons and put them in a state of deep unconsciousness.
After handling the prisoners, Dante analyzed the state of the Daybreak army. After all, even if there were no casualties, that did not mean they still had their original battle power.
The Sunlight Champions and Neo-Demons at Rank 1 were the ones who could heal the fastest since their wounds were not severe and could be treated with the pills and potions available with them.
But the situation among the Rank 2 Neo-Demons was different. As the main force against more than a dozen Rank 2 demons, Sophia, Rax, and Kilo had accumulated a great number of injuries but the most serious part was their exhausted energy pools, especially Sophia.
The one who was in the worst condition was Ezequiel. In his fight against the enraged Rank 3 demon, not only did he take an immense amount of physical damage but also the flames of the Goristro had invaded his body.
If it was anyone else, they would have to focus all of their attention on fighting against those flames, but Ezequiel's body was filled with powerful lightning at a cellular level, so he was automatically purging that harmful power. But still, it weakens him and consumes his energy reserves.
Dante's condition was not good either. He had not taken any damage during the fight, but his Abyss Aura and Sun Force were practically empty. So trying to accelerate the healing speed of the others was not possible.
After calculating the most efficient path to follow, Dante spoke to the army.
"We will rest for eighteen hours and then continue our exploration. Since we are not in our top condition, we will be extra careful and in case an enemy as powerful as the demonic horde appears again, we will avoid them and wait until we are fully recovered."
Dante spoke with a commanding tone, but that was directed to the Rank 1 members of the army, for whom he manipulated their every decision on the battlefield.
But things were different with the Rank 2 Neo-Demons in whose fights his strategies will have not much effect since they are few and their battle instincts were more precise and faster than his instructions.
So he looked at them and seeing that they agreed with his plan, he carried on.
Everybody used every single second they had, either eating food from powerful magic creatures to increase the speed at which their energy pool recovered or using potions to heal their wounds before returning to the surface and continuing with the exploration.
Before the battle with the horde, they had already secured 80% of the area designated to them, so even though they were now moving very slow, it only took three more days before finishing their goal.
During that time they did not find any true threat and their enemies were only small groups of demons and weak Heavenly race settlements.
The two groups composed of Magi had also finished their mission not long ago, but unlike Dante's flawless victory, they had taken casualties in their fights against the demons.
One Magi group fought against a demonic horde led by two Advanced Rank 3 Demons. Those demon's bloodlines were very weak so the five Rank 3 Magi did not have a problem defeating them and were able to capture one alive.
They lost nineteen Rank 1 and one Rank 2 Magi in the fight against the horde of more than three thousand demons.
This could be considered excellent since the ratio of death was beneath 4% and most of the Magi were thankful for the Sun Tadpole in their hands that were constantly giving them advice during the fight.
It was the other Magi group, the one who suffered from catastrophic losses. Their enemy was a horde led by a single Master Rank 3 demon and due to the arrogance of the four Rank 3 Magi, from the start of the fight, they intended to capture it alive so they restrained themselves.
This proved fatal when the demon, in his rage, had chosen to self destruct, taking with him an Advanced Rank 3 Magus and nine Rank 2.
Luckily the explosion of the demon was very high in the sky and did not reach those Rank 1 Magi, so their losses only amounted to twenty-one.
The death of a Rank 3 Magus, even if he was at the Advanced level, was a heavy blow since there were only nine of them, unlike the ninety Rank 2 and nine hundred Rank 1.
Trying to resurrect the Rank 3 Magus was not possible since even if his soul was not destroyed by the laws, he was so powerful that he would need someone at the Law Engraving Rank that mastered necromancy at a very high level.
Despite the setback, neither of the three groups wasted time and now that they had secured their designated areas, they began with the magic tower construction.
The parts of the magic tower were already built and they only needed to create a solid foundation in which the tower would be erected and they made sure that the runic formations that would take control over the natural energies of the world would connect with the other towers and would work perfectly.
For this part, there was a limit on how many people could work at the same time. So the three groups sent their weakest members back to the tower in the mountain range with the prisoners.
........
Close to the magic tower where the Soul Forging existences of the Magi World were residing, there was a residence.
This was constructed under Zatiel's orders, and no one, not even those Rank 4 knew what he was doing inside it since the walls were made of a special material that blocked any form of probing.
The only thing they knew was that hundreds of those demons that the army had captured were being stored in there.
The abode was fifty meters tall and one hundred meters wide and long, so it should be impossible to accommodate so many demons inside, especially with those like the Goristro who measure in the hundreds of meters.
But that was easily fixed with spells from two schools in which Zatiel was very skillful.
The first thing he did was use a necromancy spell in all the demons known as Suspended Animation, which put them in a comatose state and deactivated all of their body defenses.
Then he used a simple transmutation spell named Absolute Shrink, which decreased the size of those demons to a fifteenth of their original.
This spell was not very useful in battle since an enemy would only need to use a small amount of energy and the effect of the spell will be gone, but now they were not able to resist.
Right now Zatiel was in front of the Goristro and as he analyzed the creature, he could not help but be impressed.
'So with those Angelic Paragon's wings, EZ has already reached a battle power equal to mine.'
There was satisfaction in Zatiel's eyes as he saw the damage on the Goristro's body and recognized the power needed to cause it.
He knew how powerful the Goristro demons are, especially when they are put in an enraged state and attack without regard for their lives.
Zatiel did not waste too much time in those thoughts and started to work.
The first thing he was going to do was harvest the materials from the demon's body needed to create the Abyssal Heritor runic set.
He took a set of tools from his ring. They were a collection of knives and other instruments whose purpose seemed to flay creatures.
For the runic set, he only needed two things, the skin of the demon and his blood. Since he needed the demon alive, as he had other uses for him, he was very careful not to produce damage in an artery or vein unless it was necessary.
Zatiel movements were flawless, and little by little, he removed the skin of the Goristro until nothing more than a disgusting bloody monstrosity remained.
The walls and floor of the abode seem to be able to suck any blood that came in contact with it, so despite the demon constantly bleeding, nothing remained.
Despite the ghastly appearance of the Goristro, Zatiel's expression was always the same, and he was actually humming a song as he went to the demon's head and proceeded to open his skull.
Once that was done, he removed a third of the demon's brain and kept it inside a special container, before throwing his immense body against one of the walls.
Once the Goristro's body touched the wall, chains appeared from it and pierced his body, nailing him to the wall.
If someone were to see what was happening here, he would think it was one of the torture chambers of Baator, and the most terrifying thing was the man who continued humming his songs as he grabbed another demon and repeated the earlier process.
