"Damien, wait here. They must be holding her somewhere inside that hellhole, and the true perpetrator must be with her," Akira said as she and Damien stood in the midst of a couple of dead Daemon corpses. Both of them were standing in a ravine surrounded by cliffs and dead forests with thick black clouds looming over them.
Any normal person would feel spooked by standing in this place.
However, Damien felt blown away by how insane Akira's powers were to the point he was enamored by the way she used her lightning.
The moment they landed here, they got ambushed by a bunch of Daemons. Akira got rid of them before any one of them could even get near him.
But what Damien noticed was that these Daemons seemed weaker when he was able to sense their cultivations. All of them were in the Profound Ethereal Realm, unlike the first Daemon he met.
This is why he felt that Akira was right. The one who really kidnapped her disciple must be the strongest one and must be hiding somewhere.
But who would dare to kidnap her disciple? Was it because they didn't recognize who the disciple really was?
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64ce79d606107d003c23ea27", id: "pf-5140-1"})"Let me come with you. We came this far anyway, right?" Damien didn't want to stay here alone and felt he could be of some help to her.
Akira shook her head as she said, "It might not be safe ahead, and I won't be able to focus if I have to be worried about you."
Damien nodded with a sigh, feeling she had a point. He would have also said the same thing in her shoes.
"I can't sense anybody nearby, so you should be safe. But if something unexpected happens, fly away without any thought. Or break this stone, and I will know if you need help," Akira handed over a black oval stone to Damien as he curiously looked at it, and before he knew it, Akira had already disappeared.
Still, Damien felt something was off about this entire situation and decided to simply check the memories of one of the dead Daemons.
"Master, are you feeling that something is off?" Kalypso asked as she sensed the doubt in Damien's mind.
"My aunt is a powerful woman, and she is surely famous enough for even these dirtbags to know about her. So how come they don't know who her disciple is. I find it hard to believe these monsters with brains would unknowingly kidnap the disciple of a powerful warlord," Damien mused.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64cc9e79c7059f003e4ad4b0", id: "pf-5109-1"})"Then Master, you should quickly use your Shackles of Death technique on any one of these Daemons to look through their memories. Maybe you might learn something," Kalypso hastily suggested as Luna opened one of her eyes, wondering what this pipsqueak was talking about.
"What? I would still have to sacrifice my soul essence to raise one of them, and honestly, I am waiting to find a worthy servant. These ones are no good," Damien said with a strong head shake.
"No, no. No need to sacrifice anything, nor do you have to turn any of them into an undead. You just have to use your soul energy to scour through their memories. They are born from nethereal energy, which allows you to tap into their memories even after they die, unlike those who are born from ethereal energy. So do it quickly, Master, before their soul completely leaves their bodies," Kalypso said in a hurried tone.
"What this little spirit said makes sense. You have to try," Luna chimed in as she curiously looked on, wondering if it was really possible.
Damien didn't waste any moment as he quickly placed his hand on the head of one of the Daemons and closed his eyes. He focused as his soul energy seeped into the Daemon's dead mind.
Damien hoped they weren't intelligent enough to use some self-destruction techniques to wipe their memories after dying, not that most would do something like that.
His brows furrowed as he looked through the memories of this dead Daemon. It just took a few seconds, and he quickly moved on to the next dead one without saying anything.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "663633fa8ebf7442f0652b33", id: "pf-8817-1"})But he clicked his tongue as he realized that it was too late and all the memories were gone by now.
"What did you see, Master?" Kalypso asked.
Damien pointed at the crowded dead forest ahead of him and said, "My aunt went in that direction, and as she said, some Daemons might still be there, but her disciple is not there. She is being held in some other place, though I couldn't recognize which place it was. All I could get was fragments."
Luna scoffed and asked, "Then how do you know the place your aunt flew to wasn't the same one you saw?"
"The surroundings just seemed a bit different. But to make sure, let me spread my senses and see if I see anything similar," Damien spread his soul perception as it spread over 10 meters, 50 meters, 250 meters, 500 meters, and 1000 meters and stopped when he saw something that piqued his interest.
"I think I found something," Damien said as he took off and flew in the other direction.
"Hey, wait. You should break that stone and let your aunt know about this. Isn't that what she told you? Do you really want to rush head-on into monsters that wouldn't think twice before eating your flesh?" Luna said, seeing him take off on his own. She still felt disgusted about these man-eating monsters. As a goddess, she never got shocked by anything.
But so far, what surprised her the most was the fact that Damien was half-ghoul…a race that preyed on living beings of her universe. She just didn't know what to feel about it.
Damien had no idea about her complicated thoughts since she never expressed them, but he could feel that she felt more distrustful of the people around him, including his own aunt.
"I can't bother my aunt without making sure I got the right place. Besides, the Daemons my aunt killed earlier were not strong enough to be a danger to me. I will just scout the place and get out in case there is a danger I can't overcome," Damien said just to reassure Luna while Kalypso primed herself to be ready for a battle at any time.
