What came out of the bush was a headless skeleton with flesh only on its right arm, it was somewhat similar to the creature that Daimon killed before, but this one had an arm instead of a head.
Or at least it looked like an arm, because once the creature spotted Daimon, a pair of eyes appeared on what would be the biceps and the arm opened sidewards revealing a mouth full of spiked teeth.
It was bizarre to say the less, but even then, Daimon didn't feel any fear from it, he was instead surprised by the discover that this creature was a living being, he could understand if undead were had this kind of physical disposition.
But the creature wasn't an undead race, and it didn't seem to be artificially created, although he wasn't able to use them to get skills, like the mad chimera, this was different, it wasn't due to genetic damage, instead there was no notification about it.
And since Evangeline didn't say anything, Daimon knew this was one of those mysteries of the system which he had to discover by himself.
Daimon returned to reality when he saw the creature rushing towards him, strangely it didn't directly attack him with its sole complete limb, and instead, the bones of the fleshless arm stretched out like a whip which was then swung at Aster.
"Hsss", Daimon noticed a strange mana was attached to the bones and he easily dodged the bone whip, the next thing he saw was that wherever the bone whip touched, it left some kind of chemical burn as well as a black trace.
"Early five-star battle prowess", mumbled Daimon as he the creature kept attacking him, by swinging the bone whip repeatedly, as it chased after him.
To be honest he didn't pay too much attention to the other participants, besides those who had badges, but since a five-star grade creature was enough to send that paladin to the underworld, then he was probably a first grader.
'Next weakness testing', though Daimon, dark mis gathered around him and the creature suddenly slowed down its movements.
The thing actually stopped in cold but after a moment as if it noticed something it continued with its attacks, of course Daimon dispelled his darkness mana to avoid corroding the creature with it.
Instead of that, this time he tried out lightning, purple electricity exploded out of Daimon's body, making crackling sounds.
"GFRFHGH!", the creature screeched some gibberish and then avoided Daimon's lightning as if it was a pest, but that was to be expected considering this creature it was of an unharmonious nature, on a higher grade than the beast races and closer to the undead, while still being alive, it was something unseen in the Wonder Myriad stellar chart.
Noticing that the creature didn't dare to approach nor attack him while his lightning was on the field, he absorbed it back and then changed to an element he rarely used, light.
Surprisingly light didn't have the effect he expected, every affinity varied depending on the user, unlike Loren, Daimon's light was unable to heal and had a warlike nature, making it more similar to the corrosive light developed by humans, with the only difference that it burned everyone and not just those with unharmonious inclinations.
And yet, this creature showed little to no reactions towards it, the eyes on the arm closed their eyelids, but after that it rushed towards Daimon again, making him dodge the bone whip.
However, there was a difference this time, bones which formed the legs of the creature stretched, propelling it frontwards, then the arm suddenly expanded becoming an adult sized monstrous mouth which tried to swallow Daimon whole.
Daimon softly snorted, lightning exploded with him as the center showring the creature and making it scream, before it fell to the ground and withering a couple of seconds later, just like the monster back at the black hall, the bones turned black before they crumbled apart into dust.
"I guess that explains how did it eat that guy", concluded Daimon after seeing that last attempt from the creature to eat him.
"Mm?", Daimon saw something glowing on the sand near where the creature's bones disintegrated, so he crouched down to pick it up.
He curiously observed the thing, it was a small black octagonal piece of some kind of bone-like material.
Daimon felt an ominous sensation just by holding the thing, so he used his lightning to attack it in order to destroy it, but after a couple of seconds he noticed it was almost unaffected, instead of that, the ominous sensation increased.
"Try to survive this", said Daimon as white flames covered his hand, this time the octagonal bone like material tried to escape from his hand, but a split of a second later it was consumed by Demon Light, leaving behind small wisps of black smoke which dissipated not too long after.
Daimon raised an eyebrow, normally the creatures inside a magic ruin custody some kid of resource, which becomes the prize for the explorer, but the ring which the paladin should have been using to store his finds as well as the potions he brought to the exploration, was empty and broken on the ground.
And that spelled problems for them, because it meant these creatures had the custom of using resources to become stronger, just like mages, so it was possible they even had some kind of civilization of their own.
"Things are getting worse with each minute, damn it", swore Daimon, he took out the black badge and saw a countdown being projected on it, marking 70 hours, which probably meant that Stella could only enter after that period of time passed.
Daimon scanned every nook and cranny of this small island and after not finding anything, he burned down the remains of that paladin.
Although he wasn't empathic enough to bring the bones of someone he didn't know, back with him, as a former human he at least burned down the bones to prevent them from being used for other purposes.
"This is as much as I can do for you", mumbled Daimon before he left the jungle and walked towards the highest place of the island, a few hundreds of meters at the east there was a rock mountain, which resembled an unactive volcano.
With a couple of jumps Daimon climbed to the top of the mountain and then watched the horizon as he used infinity eyes to extend his field of vision, trying to find his next resting point.
Although Daimon's mana was virtually limitless, there was a limit as to how many times he could refill his mana pool, and so there was a limit as to how much he could travel using blink, and this planet seemed to be even bigger than Lykos, which was already too much to say, considering Lykos was about twenty times bigger than earth.
Only after he reached the limit the limit of his mana sense which was about 1500 kilometers, he managed to grasp sings of a series of small islands near to each other, there was only one problem, he saw smoke coming from one of them which meant there was someone or something already living on it.
Daimon changed the configuration on the bracelet of the god of mischief and his image slowly faded away, this was a small flaw he found on the item, he set him to change his whole appearance to his surroundings which turned it into a perfect camouflage.
'With some luck that smoke is a bonfire set up by mom or one of them', thought Daimon as he used blink to gain elevation before he advanced straight towards that series of small islands, unaware by the fact that the black badge now had a small an octagon mark on one of its corners.
…
While Daimon was flashing through the air, outside of the magic ruin, at the border of the stellar chart, the scenery was completely different to how it was when Daimon and the others entered.
Practically a city was built here, with tons of locals as well as other establishments of common use like bars, restaurants and… even brothels, the merchants didn't leave aside any chance to make money after all.
As soon as the students entered the magic ruin, the principals and the executors of the four galaxies lifted the prohibition, and in a matter of minutes everything was settled down, there was a lot of activity since representatives from big families and forces as well as newspapers, decided to stay here until the students returned.
What was more surprising was, that about ten minutes after the students entered, the first lord realm member of an academy was transported inside the magic ruin.
The one sent by the humans was a woman wearing a white dress as well as a veil which covered her upper face, leaving only her nose and below to be visible, a member of the Penddra family.
Which of course made the principal of the Blue-Sky academy, Miles, smile from ear to ear, a couple of minutes later the mage lord from the vampires was also transported, and half an hour later the demon mage lord followed, leaving only Stellar behind.
Miles and Crowley couldn't remain quiet and started running their mouths.
"What do you think, maybe giving their badge to a first year wasn't such a smart decision, who would have thought".
"Principal Miles is right, luckily we didn't mix personal affairs and business and properly gave the badge to a second-year student".
Unlike those two, Angela remained silent, but even she couldn't doubt about Aura's decision, it has been a couple of hours by now and Stella was still outside, so it was normal for her to believe that the badge bearer selected by Aura eighter was taking too much time, or died.
What they didn't know was that both Stella and Aura were calm for a reason, Aura could tell Daimon was completely fine thanks to her being a soulmate, as for Stella, the countdown also appeared in her part of the badge.
As well as the shark emblem which replaced the word "Black" on it, she managed to steal a peak at the badge of the human mage lord, and such a change didn't happen.
And in her experience, if there was someone capable of achieving what others deemed impossible, that was Daimon.
'I wonder, what kind of impossibility did you pull out this time… Daimon', she thought to herself as she sent Aura a message through her sigil lector to inform her of the changes on the badge and the countdown.
