Once Daimon finished interrogating Miserius, he exchanged subjects with Karmandi whose expression was grim, and went to the sea flea.
Unfortunately, once he started inspecting the sea flea, he noticed its situation was the same as Miserius, the body of the magic beast was superficially perfectly fine, but some of its mana circuits were destroyed.
There was a difference between the Skelefiend and the magic beast though, unlike Miserius's body where there were no traces left, Daimon was able to see an almost unnoticeable amount of a strange liquid encapsuled in one of the many legs of the sea flea.
Daimon quickly cut the leg of the sea flea and sent it to his inventory to preserve it, the sea flea was so battered that there was no response, apparently the thing begged Karmandi to take it as his subordinate to save itself, but the snake general ignored it.
Daimon inwardly sighed, that scheming guy was really careful to cover his ass, he was unable to find anything else, maybe someone expert in magic beasts would be able to find more information out of its corpse.
'Well, I guess I have presents for Liz and Aura', thought Daimon as he tabbed Disaster into the head of the sea flea.
Of course he asked Narasha to control Disaster so it didn't turn the corpse into no dust as it had researching value.
Then with a snap of his fingers he kept its corpse in his inventory, something he already had agreed with Karmandi.
Speaking of the snake general, as soon as the Miserius listened to Karmandi speaking, he realized he was in presence of a Half Stellar ranked.
"You damn magic beasts, didn't you hate the Clear Water kingdom, since when are you allied with them!", she exclaimed in disbelief.
The only Half Stellar rank magic beast which was subordinated to the Clear Water kingdom, was the shark raised by the White royal family, also since Karmandi is a snake race it was safe to assume, he was one of the generals of the Stellar ranked they were aiming for.
'So, from the very beginning we were being tricked', thought Miserius as his face paled, targeting an Stellar ranked being is a really dangerous thing, because if cornered it can escape leaving its subordinates behind, and the revenge of a Stelar ranked who has nothing to lose, is a thing to be wary of.
All the subordinates who were below the Arch ranks, only accepted because they were told the Black Empress had no other allies besides the Silver Dawn pirates, which were taken care of majorly by the Devil Stingray pirates prior to they becoming allies with the help of that Lord.
Not to mention they managed to convince some of the subordinates of the Black Empress to come to their side, in other words they were sure it was going to be an easy kill, but now turns out some high ranked noble of the Mermen Sea and the very princess of the Elemental Sea were allied with the Black Empress.
Karmandi snorted, the pirates and Skelefiends both were waiting for them to fight to death with the nobles, so that they could reap the benefits.
And the worst part of it, is that it would have worked if not for the intervention of the silver haired youth, he met by randomness of destiny.
Out of anger Karmandi hissed and a line of pressured water pierced Miserius and the Bottom Shredders's heads killing them on the sport.
The snake general then nodded at Daimon and as per their agreement he was given the corpses, which he kept I his inventory.
Daimon noticed Karmandi's agitation, or more accurately anger and he asked.
"Did you get to know who else betrayed you?".
To which Karmandi shook his head.
"Not in detail, those Bottom Shredders and the Sea Flea, were related to Ulkrear, so both were his subordinates… apparently the one behind all this didn't even let the other traitor generals who were on their side".
"They were given some kind of item that reacts in the presence of another traitor, just prior to the start of this event, only then Ulkrear knew for sure I was enemy, this was probably done so that the Empress wouldn't notice something was off, that's why I hate humans", snorted the snake general.
Daimon chuckled, at this point he wasn't sure if the one behind this was a human, since it had all these forbidden methods, but he could bet that it was a system user indeed, think of it, prior to their arrival to Neptune there was no one who knew about undead here.
So that technique the Skelefiend were using simply came out of nowhere, the whole situation smelled like the shop of a system.
At this point the first princess should be awake and fine, so Daimon beckoned at Karmandi and the two of them went up the tunnel to the upper cave where the girls were waiting for him.
Daimon then explained the information he got from Miserius and Karmandi complemented the story with what he got from the magic beasts.
Apparently a few months earlier an unknown person wearing a full black robe which covered its whole body approached some high ranked people all over Neptune, what he exposed during those reunions is a mystery since Miserius's status wasn't high enough to attend, but according to the rumors it had something to do with the destiny of Neptune itself.
Something along the lines of an imminent crisis knocking at their doors, of course many refused to believe the words of a stranger and simply ignored it, others even followed the stranger to the Maelstrom Sea and attacked it, but they nothing else was known about them.
Not even a couple of days later, the people from the Winder Myriad Stellar Chart and the galaxy from which Scarlet and the other girls came, arrived at the first layer of Neptune.
The first ones to notice them were the Skelefiends who had sent scouts previously, because their leader Horrorclaw was the most oriented to believe the words of that unknown person, for some reason.
Imagine their excitement when they got to know invaders from other places had arrived at Neptune, if others could come in, then that meant there might be a way out for them.
Also they misjudged the guys from the tribes as people from the Elemental Sea, as their energy firms were pretty similar, and the "invaders" were more similar to the habitants of the Mermen Sea.
That's why the pirates and the Skelefiends accepted the offer of that mysterious person and joined hands to destroy the Mermen and Elemental Seas, and they have been working together for longer than what others knew.
They even purposedly waited to ambush the captain of the Silver Dawn pirates, until that person told them to do it, and the date coincided with the day the trident of promise that the White royal family has been guarding broke and the day the Shaman of the Elemental Sea suffered some kind of backlash.
After that the pirates did the task they were required if they wanted to join to the alliance, since they were skeptical the first time, and ambushed the nobles of the Mermen and Elemental Seas, but as Daimon got to discover, their true aim was to kidnap the princesses, unfortunately the reasons of that were still unknown.
But Daimon got a really important notice from Miserius, one of the two generals from the Skelefiends who came here, is the one of the lovers of Horrorclaw and the mother of his favorite son, so if there was someone with more information it was her.
"Per their agreement the "only" exit of this place is costodied by both Skelefiends and pirates, so there is two Half Stellar ranks there as well as at least four late stage peak Mortal ranks there, besides the other subordinates", said Daimon making some rough calculations about the enemies.
"The other exit only known by the Skelefiends has only one Half Stellar rank, the other one who would have been there is probably Ulkrear, but he ran away, right?", mumbled Karmandi.
Daimon nodded, his intervention created a flaw in the plans of the Skelefiends, they hid the fact that there were nearly 400 extra of them from the pirates in that alternative entrance from the pirates, they sent half of their forces to cooperate with the pirates while the other half as well as the traitor Ulkrear would have waited in the shadows, if the pirates were careless they would have been robbed out of their rewards, or they would have ended up getting just one of the princesses.
But now that Ulkrear is out of the picture, there was a weak link in the encirclement the enemy formed, one that Daimon was planning to take advantage of.
They couldn't obviously fight in three fronts at the same time, as they only had one Half Stellar rank, as well as Rita and Horals who could stall another for some time, that was their limit in that aspect.
There was also the thing of all the kidnapped girls that were being kept hostages, so that the nobles and people from the Elemental Sea tried to save them just to be ambushed, a trap set up to catch Mellie, Jasmine and Daphne.
Daimon contemplated things for a moment while he made memory of the many strategy lessons, Erin gave him and the best solution he could came out with was.
"Lure the tiger out of the mountain", he mumbled.
The girls gave Daimon a confused gaze, which made him elaborate.
"We can't directly attack the main exit since there are two Half Stellar ranks, if we try to stall them the Skelefiends can call the other half of the army and surround us, on the other hand if we attack the alternative exit, the other two can stab our backs, Miserius mentioned unlike the pirates, the Skelefiend generals have a way to contact each other after all".
"So, what do you suggest to do, if we can't attack any of them?", asked Karmandi, to which Daimon smirked.
"We don't attack any of them, instead we…".
Before Daimon could finish speaking, Rita's voice interrupted him.
"Pardon me young master, but those guys have started sending scouts to all directions".
Daimon nodded as he looked at his clock, there were only a few hours left before the Trident Marshal and the other high ranked people noticed there was something off and that would be the limit the Skelefiends and pirates had, so they were of course feeling tight on time as they haven't managed to capture even one of the princesses.
"They will eventually find out where we are, I don't think we can wait until the people outside come to help, Gabriel", said Karmandi, just to make sure that wasn't Daimon's plan.
Daimon shook his head in response.
"That's not the idea, we will divide into two groups, one will "accidentally" get the attention of the Skelefiends at the alternative exit, while the other distracts the ones at the main exit and save the hostages".
"The only problem is that I need someone besides me to get the attention of the Skelefiends, besides that you can leave the rest to me", said Daimon as he looked at the three princesses, they were the main targets after all.
"I'll do it", both Mellie and Daphne were about to raise their hands but Jasmine was faster this time.
Daimon raised an eyebrow, as he looked at Jasmine, she was the last he expected to volunteer for this task, but at the same she is the one he wanted to do it the most, because the Skelefiends targeted her the most, for some unknown reason.
After a moment of silence Jasmine said.
"I diched my original team due to that guy… they are people with which I grew up with, and I'm pretty sure they didn't say anything so if they arrived at this underwater space, they must have been taken hostages too, with this I will undo a mistake", she said with a firm determined light in her eyes.
Mellie and Daphne wanted to object, since the majority of the female nobles were from the Clear Water kingdom, so it was their duty to save them, but Daimon stopped them from doing so.
"It's not like this is a suicidal mission you two, in fact I would say it's riskier to where you will be going, as there will be two Stellar ranks, also I will be taking Neal and most of Karmandi's subordinates with me anyway, everyone will have to cooperate for this to work".
Mellie and Daphne slightly flushed, they were getting a bit lost in the moment, but now that they thought about it, they knew Daimon was right, the risk was the same.
"So, what do you need from us?", asked Karmandi, normally he would have called someone who recommended to divide when their numbers were already less than the enemy and the other party had a 1:3 ratio of Stellar ranks an idiot, but even if he were to be beaten to death, he wouldn't believe even for a second that the silver haired youth in front of him is one of them, if he did something there was for sure a reason behind it.
Daimon smiled and then explained his plan to all of them, the more he advanced the wider the smiles on the faces of he others, until they all were at the verge of laughing.
'As expected of young master, a demon must know how to manipulate enemies, to the point that they would sell themselves and help count the money HAHAHA', the bone general thunderously laughed from within the shadows, making Rita sigh.
'Can't you show some propriety bonehead', she mumbled.
