Inside of the curtain of dust which was covering the platform, Daimon looked at his surroundings, the dust blocked his view and when he tried to use infinity eyes, he could only see that silver brightness of before illuminating the whole place.
Evidently Aleah was spreading her battle aura to mislead him, which made Daimon nod in recognition, this was one of the reasons as to why accepted spar with Aleah, nothing was perfect, even him with all the "cheats" he had, was improving with each day.
Yvonne helped him take into account the mana flow, and now Aleah made him realize, the spectrum of mana/battle aura in his infinity eyes had a flaw in the form that certain types of them had an unbearable glow.
So, he lowered the amount of mana in his eyes even more and then stopped seeing the battle aura and instead detected the thermal spectrum, just in time to see Aleah's figure stopping to attack him frontwards.
A figure came out of the curtain of dust, Aleah whose hair which was rebellious by innate, was now a bit disheveled, some strands of it covered her face, but that wilder appearance added to her charm.
Daimon saw the small horn on her forehead shining and then his pupils contracted as he crossed his arms in front of him.
"Boom!", Daimon felt as if he was hit by a truck, the sleeves of his jacket were blasted away and the impact pushed his body about one hundred meters backwards, and was strong enough to leave some scratches and a tinge of redness on the skin of his arms.
Daimon then felt a sudden surge of battle aura at his right, his nails became claws and then used them to block Aleah's.
The sound of metals colliding as well as spark filled the still dust covered platform as Daimon and Aleah exchanged attacks for another thirty minutes not allowing the dust to settle, at some point Daimon noticed there was something off.
Aleah stopped blocking his attacks and started taking them directly, to take the change land her attacks on him, resulting in their clothes having claw marks.
That being said, none of them actually caused real wounds in the other, at most there were some shallow scratches which healed right away, but still this wasn't the same fighting style Daimon knew Aleah had.
She took pride in suppressing her opponent and didn't let their attacks land without responding, but right now instead of that, it was more as if she was abandoning all defense with the intention of winning.
Daimon dodged sidewards and noticing Aleah's movements becoming a bit slower, he grabbed her arm and stopped her in cold, her skin was glistening in that silverish light, and she still had the white horn but the wings were fading away.
"That's enough for today", said Daimon seeing her panting from time to time.
Still Aleah didn't answer and instead in a swift maneuver placed herself behind Daimon and kept him in place with her free arm before she let her body fell to the ground.
Daimon didn't know whether he should laugh or cry, he didn't expect that last move from her.
Now that they were laying on the platform, Aleah's transformation ended but she didn't let go of him.
"Even with that, I couldn't beat you, just how much mana do you have", she said as she tried to catch up her breath.
Daimon shook his head in response.
"Your battle prowess and mine are almost the same, the difference is that I can keep going for more time, but you actually made me use almost all my mana".
Daimon wasn't lying to make her look good, besides getting Narasha's help, demon light or core synchrony he wasn't holding back, and Aleah didn't use her weapon too, so demon light and core synchrony were what made the difference between them.
His mana didn't diminish since his core's reserves were virtually endless, but each time he "recharged" his mana pool, it took a toll on him, and at this point he has done it about twenty times, and his limit was around twenty-five, more than that and he would be forcing his mana circuits too much.
And Aleah followed him through hall that amount of mana, just as she stated, with those wings she didn't fell behind in terms of reserves, but just like Daimon she had a limit of other kind.
Aleah let go of Daimon and then laid down with a tired yet happy smile on her face, her chest moved up and down as she recovered her breath, Daimon got off her body and sat down next to her.
"My clothes aren't a cat's scratcher you know?", said Daimon as he looked at his get up which was now practically destroyed.
"You say that, but those "wolf hands" of yours focused quite a bit on my chest as well", answered Aleah as she pointed at the area of her chest which had a lot of claw marks revealing parts of her black bra and also some of her pale skin.
"Weren't you the one who willingly allowed me to land those attacks though".
…
"Pfftt", after a moment of silence, both Daimon and Aleah laughed, Daimon could treat her like another friend ignoring the fact that she is a girl, it's quite different to how he behaves with his other classmates, maybe because he recognized as an overlord just like him.
As for Aleah she had a lot of fun sparring with Daimon, she never met anyone who could keep up with her, and now she was excited for them to return from the magic ruin, so that she could join the academy, just to have more time to train with him, her instincts told her to stick around him and so far, she was enjoying it.
Unlike Aleah whose clothes were barely keeping together after so many cuts, Daimon only had to change his jacket and shirt.
Aleah created a metal cube and changed herself to new clothes, the curtain of dust dispelled in the meantime as they weren't clashing anymore.
Daimon was welcomed by the slightly accusing gazes of the girls as well as Arianna's dumbfounded expression.
"So that was your true battle prowess… even if I stack up my two spells, I don't think I can match up to that", she mumbled.
Aura patted Arianna's head as if she wanted to comfort her.
"Don't think on that, once you master the first two levels, I have something else for you, so do your best".
Of course, Aura couldn't just say "Daimon's knight realm is higher than your mage realm, so it's normal your battle prowess falls short", not to mention she had recently learned Aura's spells.
The metal cube disappeared revealing a fresh as a lettuce Aleah, besides her disheveled hair, there was no way to tell she just had such an intense close combat with Daimon.
As Daimon was about to ask Aura to take Aleah back to the Happy Wanderer, so they could go meet with Dimas, she leaned herself on Daimon's shoulders before saying.
"I want to see what you found on the tundra".
Daimon raised an eyebrow, although Calvin and the others didn't sign a contract, he was sure they wouldn't reveal it to anyone without telling him first, especially because Aura was involved as she went to pick them up.
But apparently that played against him this time.
"Something which made Calvin take a beating and still not loosening his lips, should be worth seeing~", she said as she giggled.
Daimon bitterly smiled.
'So that's what happened', he thought as he shrugged, honestly her lineage whatever was, he was sure it wasn't limited to the Emperor realm, same as Aura and Erin and Aisha even before he "entered" their lives.
"Fine you can come, Arianna you can come too if you want to", said Daimon as he walked towards the girls.
Arianna turned to see Aura asking for her opinion.
"It's a good idea, I was going to tell you father anyway, since I will be out of Lykos until the exploration finishes and he will be in charge of the clan, while Erin guards the fort".
"Speaking of that… you know that to do if Erin's heart mirror reacts negatively, right?", asked Daimon through the connection of core synchrony, so that only his soulmates could hear him.
"I'll suppress it".
"I'll chop the snake's head off".
Immediately answered Aura and Erin.
Daimon nodded, as cold as it might sound, if he wasn't sure that Dimas was harmless, he'd rather eliminate him before leaving to the magic rune.
"Stay close to us", said Aura as she used space shift to transport them to the tundra, more specifically to the area where she met with Daimon that time.
The weather at the tundra was as bad as the last time, the snow was pouring quite heavily and the strong wind howled, even without Dimas using his domain.
"It's still surprising, if it wasn't for the fact that I know what's below, I wouldn't even bother to look below the frozen ground", mumbled Aura as she waved her hand cutting a fifteen meters diameter hole which they used as their entry point.
Elaine blocked it with her ice to cover any traces as they descended into the ground, until they reached the cave which functioned as the gate to the area where Dimas was confined.
"Daimon, you finally came, that's good I was getting bored here", as soon as they set foot in the cave, Dima's voice echoed through it, a clear sign that he only detected them recently.
'If he's hostile, he is an airhead', thought Daimon as they flew towards the wall where that weird inscription was engraved.
"Yeah, I had some things to do lately, but I brought you some food and things to read", he said.
With Aura's help it didn't take too much for them to arrive at the gates of Dimas's "castle", and the first thing Daimon gazed at was the inscription.
Without injecting mana, the thing was illegible just like last time.
'Let's see if I can decipher you this time', thought Daimon as he injected practically all his mana into his eyes, making a purple glint flash through them.
