Daimon, Marlene and Aurora who just left the prison, saw Thea coming to meet them, she knew her guide would be needed move through the middle area of the Maelstrom Sea, not only the entrance was dangerous, the fog was actually corrosive since it contained darkness mana.
While being surrounded by it won't instantly kill you, it's incredibly hard to navigate through it, and after being lost, the fog will corrode your ship, then the magic beasts that linger below the surface of the dark blue water will come to the feast.
Even if you tried to escape flying, the mist raises until the limit on the sky of Neptune, so you'll still have it hard to find your way out, and after being drained by the darkness mana you'll start hallucinating, the result is of course death.
"Come with me, I'll change the control to manual so you can guide me through the mist wall", said Aurora to Thea.
"Mm", Thea nodded and then she left with Aurora to the captain's cabin, Marlene had already excused herself and returned to the Main Residence, which left Daimon alone in the middle of the inner ring.
Well, the word "alone" might be a bit too much, considering there were a few people observing him from afar, Daimon suddenly dodged at the left and Saraha who was waiting for a chance to tackle him, passed a few centimeters away from Daimon.
"I'll tell Jasmine to tighten your leash tonight", said Daimon to the crazy girl, just to see her intensely gazing at him as she licked her lips.
Daimon sighed, he could also notice some of the young members of Marlene's clan "spying" on him, they were of course way easy to notice, but since there was no harm, as they kept some distance unlike Sarah, Daimon didn't bother them and instead also walked towards the Main Residence, while he easily dodged Sarah's tries to catch him.
Once he returned to the residence Daimon walked towards Jasmine room where all the girls, with the exception of Thea who was with Aurora and Marlene, were sitting on their beds meditating.
Daimon laid down on his bed where Aisha who was meditating immediately opened her eyers, to welcome him.
'What did you do to the angelfish princess, darling, she entered the room, made a couple of circles on the entrance and then left to where those two women are staying~', said Aisha with a playful voice, which made Daimon chuckle.
'I didn't do anything, she probably wants to ask me if I have a way to lift the curse that the Hydra guy casted on her clan, but she doesn't have anything to "pay" for it, so she is doubting it', he said through the mental connection.
Aisha giggled; she knew that if her son had the way to solve Marlene's clan problem, he would have already said do, because while Daimon is pretty much indifferent to strangers, he will be the first one to help those he considers his friends.
While "allies" are a for convenience, the word "friend" holds a heavy meaning for Daimon, that's part of the influence that Aisha, Erin and the other soulmates have had on him.
'I'll talk to her later, leaving that aside couldn't you keep an eye on that crazy woman', said Daimon with an accusing voice, which made Aisha softly laugh as she hugged Daimon.
"Nope, because it's fun to see that even you can't deal with her~", said Aisha out loud, making Daimon bitterly smile, while Sarah's predacious eyes were fixed on his back, luckily with Jasmine here, she controlled herself a bit.
…
Normally when Thea returns to her territory, an escort brigade formed by at least one of her generals and two races subordinated to her, will welcome her.
But this time it was different, because everything was managed through Thea's strongest general, while Lina and Karmandi in other words the other two remaining generals are out, so that no one knows Thea is appearing.
The Black Empress might prefer direct confrontations and crushing her enemy head on, instead of schemes, but that doesn't mean she is ignorant, much less she is dumb, this time she'll be using this chance to clean the high echelon of her forces out of any "rats", she might even get some answers to a few doubts that had been bothering her for quite some time.
And so of course no one could see the giant floating citadel approaching the main territory of the Ryner Clan, in other words to Thea's family territory, an interesting thing is that Thea doesn't have a last name, or more accurately she doesn't know what her last name is.
Ryner clan is the name of the force that is led by her family, of which only she remains, there are no other members of her race, in part that's why she was so eager to meet Daimon after Karmandi described him to her.
The snake general felt a familiar sensation when he was fighting alongside Daimon, because he used blink to fly, the only one who Karmandi has seen been able to move through space, even at the star realms, in his long life was Thea, until that day.
Initially Thea thought Daimon was someone from her race, though she immediately noticed that wasn't the case after personally meeting him, she was still enthusiastic about meeting another person with "spatial" affinity, and she liked Daimon's aura which was that of a strong magic beast, not to mention, he helped her discover a traitor, which ended in her scouting him to be her general.
With Thea's guide and the cooperation of her strongest general, the Flying Citadel reached an empty area, which was isolated on purpose for their secret arrival.
The giant silver citadel descended from the sky, naturally there is a barrier surrounding the whole place, but with Thea's token of authority they bypassed it and landed, the place was completely deserted, with the exception of a single figure that stood there, amazed at the greatness of the legacy treasure of the Light Palace, one of the wonders of Neptune, but its attention then changed to the group that descended from it, before the citadel blurred and became invisible.
The group landed not too long after that, and the figure approached them, Daimon who was standing next to Thea and the other girls as well as Remi, observed the newcomer, Aurora stayed behind in the citadel, to watch over the prisoners, because there is a high stage Stellar Nethereal and it would be troublesome if the black sphere finds a way to escape if she is distracted.
The man in front of Daimon was tall surpassing the three meters of height, was wearing a proper and elegant military uniform, with Thea family's colors which are black and golden, one would definitely think he is a general, the only difference between him and a general, is the fact that he has the head of a fish.
It's not a magic beast characteristic, his head is that of a fish, an oarfish to be more accurate, which explained why he was so tall.
"Olander welcomes the little princess, I brought the most trending dresses and makeup I found on my travel…", before the fish-headed general could finish speaking, Thea punched him on the face sending him flying a couple of meters.
"Don't listen to his stupidities", said Thea as she sighed, Olander was her father's sworn brother, when he died, he took the role of being her paternal figure, the problem is that at that point Thea was already a young woman, while for Olander she is still a little girl.
The reason is because the fish-headed general lives under the customs and rules of a magic beast, because he is a magic beast that took human form, unlike Thea's family who descends from one, meaning she was born with the advantage of having human form, but the innately high strength of a magic beast.
And so, for Olander, Thea is still a child, based on her less than five thousand years of age, so the fish-headed general tends to treat her as such, buying her childish clothes and things like that.
The fish-headed general laughed and then got up, naturally he a peak high stage Stellar ranked magic beast, even in this incomplete human form, won't be so easily wounded, not to mention Thea only used physical strength without any mana to hit him earlier.
"He might be weird, but he was my father's best friend and first general, so he is somewhat reliable", said Thea to Daimon, something that didn't escape Olander's eyes.
"Lass, is this the new general you kept talking about, he looks a bit weak to me… damn seas, spatial affinity, is he perhaps a member of your race!", shouted Olander after giving Daimon a close inspection.
'I'll have to ask how he noticed I have spatial skills later', inwardly noted Daimon, before saying.
"We can discuss about that later, there the number of people that needs to be scanned is quite large according to Thea, so let's start at once".
Olander's eyes glowed when he heard Daimon calling Thea by her name, without any honorifics, Karmandi and Lina were second generation generals, as their parents were the generals of Thea's father, who unfortunately died in the battle that also provoked Thea's father's death, and it took quite some time before she allowed them to drop the honorifics.
'It seems the little princess has taken a liking to this kid… well he does feel like some kind of predacious beast, but I can't pinpoint to which race he belongs, is he part of the mermen, no, his lineage is too strong and yet he doesn't have any beast characteristics', thought Olander.
Thea had already told him beforehand that she had made allies from the Mermen and Elemental Seas, though she didn't mention who they were, Olander discovered it the moment he saw the Flying Citadel, at least he knew the Matriarch of the Light Palace was one, he couldn't recognize Mellie or Daphne as the princesses from the Mermen Sea, because they were wearing masks.
Daimon didn't know how much enemies had infiltrated Thea's upper echelon, so it was better to be safe than sorry, he might be able to capture them all with three high stage Stellar ranks and a Maximum one observing from behind the scenes, but who knows if some of them have a way to send a message ignoring Thea's space block.
If their identities were discovered by the enemy, it would be troublesome a pain in the ass, an arrow in the dark is harder to dodge than a spear on daylight, so far he knew of the existence of the scheming guy as well as the system users and other major players of whatever was going on in Neptune, but they didn't know about him, and that's how Daimon wanted to keep it until the day of the Global Raid, where he will hit them all with lethal force at the same time.
"I gathered the leaders of the 12 clans… well 11 since the Bottom Shredder race has been erased due to their betrayal, honestly I expected some not to come but no one wants to look suspicious, at least not while my army is closely watching their clans", said Olander to which Thea nodded.
They soon reached the castle of Thea's family, which was built over a rock formation that raises all the way from the bottom of the sea, they had bypassed the checking points, but the Ryner clan's territory is divided in many rings, each one inhabited by some of the races that are subordinated to Thea.
Once they entered Olander guided them through the corridors until they reached the main hall, even from the outside Daimon could feel the auras of different strong magic beasts coming from the room.
The doors opened and then all the eyes fell on them, but it only lasted a second before all the eyes diverted towards Thea, there were exactly twelve "people" here, and all of them had their own means to know that Thea wasn't here, so of course they were taken by surprise when they saw her appearing in the room.
And that wasn't all, they then noticed Remi who is also a high stage Stellar ranked, the reason of that is because in this room, besides Olander and Remi, there is just one more high stage Stellar and it is an early level one, being a minor realm lower compared to Remi, though it is unknown who is stronger out of them.
"We greet the Empress!", the twelve people stood up from their seats and then greeted Thea, who just nodded at them as she walked to the podium in front of the seats that the leaders of her subordinated clans occupied.
Daimon's group also took a seat, while Remi stayed standing up, behind them acting as their guard, which was his job, but that wasn't all, without them noticing, all the people in the room were being scanned by Daimon's head maid, who resided in his shadow.
Thea's job was to make time for Rita to finish her task, and she had the perfect way to do so, once she reached the middle of the podium, she immediately said.
"All of you might be wondering why you were called by general Olander instead of me, the answer to that is the fact that I wasn't planning on attending, but I then remembered I haven't introduced the new general to you all", said Thea as she gazed at Daimon.
Daimon got up from his seat, this was all planned so he expected to be called, and the reaction of the public was also what he expected.
When those clan leaders, whose realms go from the early stage of the Stellar rank to the high stage, saw that a member of the young generation who is at most a Lord rank, was appointed as their superior, they weren't happy.
But most of them remained silent, because at this point everyone knew that Thea judged others not only based on their strength, unlike the other three rulers.
That being said, there was one person that raised his hand to then say.
"I beg the Empress to not take it as an offense, but I can't accept that such a weakling is my superior, Lord Karmandi and Lady Lina have history, their families served the previous Emperor and they are at least half Stellars, but this guy isn't like that… not to mention he doesn't have any beast characteristics, so he should be one a part of those despicable mermen races", said a slim man with scales on his neck and arms as well as fins on his back.
That was the only other high stage Stellar rank, and the leader of the strongest subordinated clan, while Olander is way stronger, he is a single person, because his clan was exterminated during one of the wars from a long time ago, Thea's father saved him and that's why he became his right hand.
"Eleazar, since when have I needed to get your approval to designate someone a general, the contributions made by him frankly surpasses yours, and his background is clean, so there is no reason not to", said Thea with a frown on her pretty face.
This time a peak middle stage Stellar woman, the one who was sitting next to Eleazar spoke.
"But it was one of the generals appointed by the Empress the one who betrayed us, which caused the Bottom Shredder race to be tempted and defect to the enemy's side".
With that, the other leaders started discussing between each other, some were on the same side as the two that spoke against Daimon being declared a general so easily, while others said it was part of Thea's authority, there was a third division who asked Daimon to be put under a trial to demonstrate his worth.
Daimon suddenly smirked, which made Aisha and the others giggle, knowing that someone was about to suffer, and it happened quite soon, because he turned to see Thea as he pointed at the woman that spoke after Eleazar.
"She accepted the power of the Nethereals just a couple of days ago", Daimon's words didn't cause any reaction on most of the present people, Eleazar was angry that his wife was being pointed at, though he had no idea what the accusation meant.
The woman on the other hand, immediately exploded in black mist and then tried to escape, only to fail miserably as a giant hand made out of brown mana caught her, Olander knew what a "Nethereal" was, so he immediately suppressed the woman.
Very much to the displease of Eleazar.
"Empress, are you going to punish us because our opinion doesn't align with yours, if so, my clan will leave the Ryner clan right now", he said, unaware that his wife had already taken the path of becoming a Nethereal.
The atmosphere tensed up a lot, but Olander who was the strongest in the room, casually said.
"She'll be interrogated in front of all of us, if she isn't guilty, you can cut my arm and I'll guarantee your clan's safety, as you leave, if not, well, you know what the punishment for traitors is".
Eleazar immediately nodded, Olander is a legend-like existence for Thea's clan, the ruler level magic beast who doesn't want to be a ruler despite being strong and influential enough to.
Unfortunately, Eleazar missed his wife's pleading eyes gazing at him, because Olander prevented her from being able to give any hint to Eleazar.
