Returning from clearing an Orc village that had a level 40 Orc Chief, Nil and the five very tired 1st rank knights landed directly inside of Zip’s Smithy drawing attention until they saw it was the city lord.

“Father, you have returned.” Zip said, lifting his hammer up with sweat covering his back.

“Yes, we just finished quite a few things, got some good stuff for you as well.” Nil said and threw a magic bag with corpses of the below level 30 orcs while another bag holding the many weaker monsters were stored for Void.

Taking one of the items out and seeing it was an Orc, Zip’s eyes raise and nodded before storing it. “What does father need?” he asked.

“Get them a tempering.” Nil said pointing to the five.

Zip nodded and whistled to Cinder.

Each one brought one of the knights to their own forge and began the ten hit tempering which healed the men and familiars right up in a stronger form but left their backs in pain.

At that moment, the Cities Knight Order came in lead by the Commander, Tristan and the Vice, Steve.

“Sir! We had not known you had returned!” the commander said and gave a greeting of a knight.

“Do not mind it, have you brought the men for tempering?” Nil asked.

“Yes sir, we have just gone through training and although the men are tired, we did as you ordered and came while jogging as soon as we finished.” The commander said.

“Good, the best time to grow is when your muscles are still warm from exercising.” Nil said.

Zip pointed to the smaller Plated Devils and the common knights were sent to those while the knights with familiars were taken care of by Zip and Cinder themselves.

Commander Tristan and his Two headed snake had greatly strengthened since the familiar was contracted. Because of his own strength, the snake was able to develop greatly with training. Where it was thin and no more than 10 cm long before, it was now level 10, with a length two meters with a pure white scales on its entire body except on its heads where a strange purple colored scale formed. The Two Headed Snake was already proving to be stronger than common creatures. It has proven to be a very magical creature as the left head developed a very small bit of healing magic and the right head had the ability to spit acid. They are also a constrictor, which is being developed from training.

As for Vice commander, his familiar was, strangely, an undead skull that was still living instead of ‘dead’. How it developed was quite peculiar, the skull gained an innate ability at the base of the skull that would allow it to form flame around itself to levitate but the fire is strange and has little in the ways of combat.

Although it's a magic creature, it's unknown how it actually grows.

“Vice commander, please this way. Cinder, take care of these bodies.” Zip said, throwing the bag with orcs over.

She walked to her forge and dropped the orcs out.

WOOO!

Suddenly the floating flaming skull became very excited and leaving a flaming trail behind it, reached the corpse. What was amazing was that suddenly the flames extended from the base of the skull and formed something like arms and grabbed one of the corpses.

The smell of burning meat came from the ‘hands’ as the flames burned the meat to ash and began to absorb it all the way to the skull.

When the corpse was finally off the pile, the flames surrounded the corpse and rapidly destroyed the body until only the skeleton was left.

“Is it going to take over the skeleton?” Tristan said.

No one stopped it because normally monsters knew their own growth pattern for their stage so they simply watched and what happened next was shocking as the skeleton began to ‘melt’ and was slowly gathered just below the skull into a very small ‘package’ until nothing was left. It started to harden and soon turned into a familiar shape leaving everyone in shock as the first vertebra of the skeleton was formed and a ‘click’ was heard as it connected firmly through spiritual means.

Everyone was in shock after seeing a thick boned orc skeleton was used to make a single small vertebra.

“I see, the skeleton will reform as it absorbs skeletons of other creatures.” Nil said. “Vice commander!”

Nil’s voice woke everyone. The vice commander looked and stepped up saluting, “Yes my lord?!” he said.

“From now on, hunt monsters above level 20 and extract the meat from the bone and give it to your familiar. Most likely it is 1 monster per bone so it would take around 200 monsters to ‘complete’ your familiar. Train well.” Nil said patting him in the back.

The skeleton happily floated back with its new bone that was quite strong and thick.

Soon the nobles had their tempering and following that was the knights who were pounded as well leaving everyone sore for the rest of the day.

Nil returned to his home and took the scrolls from the Ice church and Order and began to train his magic along with Silver as well.

***

Crack! Crack! Pa!

A crisp sound of metal breaking was heard in the middle of the wilderness. Sitting in a large circle with several very large bodies of meat and several dozen forges surrounding it, an unusual sight appeared.

The big balls of meat were from several lizard monsters the group had caught, the size was several meters long and tall and all the scales, claws and fangs were removed before cooking but that was not all. These parts were forged.

This was, obviously, Ashley and her demons as well as Xero who were sitting in the wilds of the mountains around Cipher.

The previously mentioned parts were all turned into mage swords through the sword spirits and further into Spirit Swords. After that they forged it. Of course it didn’t end up as a sword demon because they were simply too weak to handle the true forging but the material did turn into a regular sword made of the bones and scales.

At this time, each of them were leisurely chewing on these short swords munching on them like snacks with a blissful expression.

“I had forgotten… you guys also eat swords…” Xero said.

Peng!

“That is true, I think master saw me eating a sword only once when I got the sword spirit.” Ashley said while chewing on the short sword in her hand. It was made from the scales and even had the unique scale design on it's blade but it was being eaten without any problems.

Of course, it would also be stored inside their Sword Artillery after this so it's not like it was of any concern but Xero just couldn’t help worrying about the inside of their mouths since… they were eating shards of metal.

Xero turned back to Ignia who was in his hand and closed his eyes. Inside her was an incomplete spell which was a spell dragons and many creatures who generally have fire magic have, Fire Breath.

Obviously it wasn’t a common fire breath and instead [Holy Sword Devil Flame Breath]. It wasn’t a natural Innate Spell so of course he was having trouble making it but it wasn’t difficult as well. The problem stemmed from adding the Holy Rune to the Fire and Devil runes and a conflict happening.

Of course, the bridging sequence connecting it came from the spell that created Ignia herself. As he finished the basic layout, he let out a sigh as he felt the mana drain.

“There.” Xero said.

“Graw!” she shouted and hugged me.

She then flew in front of Ashley’s forge and breathed in...

Pa!

...and blew up from the undeveloped mana channels in her body.

Her flames and sparks all flew into Ashleys horn flames.

“Ahahaha! It’s been a long time since I last saw a familiar blow up while training without self destruction.” She said amused.

Woo! Woo!

Came from her flames as the Flame Spirit could hear her but due to her injury, she had to recover and could not attack.

PA!

The flames on Ashley’s head suddenly burst.

“AH! You brat! Don’t train while in my horns!” Ashley shouted as she tried to put out the fires.

Xero started to laugh as several eruptions came from the horn flames leaving Ashley exhausted and the little spirit came out about 20% bigger and looked at her smuggly.

“You little brat!” Ashley said in a hoarse tone.

Ignia stuck her fire tongue out and turned around only to have me flick her head.

“Don’t be mean to Ashley so much.” Xero said.

“Graw!” she whined as she held her forehead.

“Go on and keep training.” Xero told her and she flew over and began to shoot weak flames from her newly developed mana channels to put strain so that she could grow stronger.

He went and grabbed the cooked meat and began to eat with vigor until he was full and began his martial arts training to process it all.

As he was finishing his routine something caused all the Devils to freeze as well as Xero.

Grrrr! BRAHHHHH!

Suddenly a deep growl came from close by before a very loud elephant’s trumpet sound resounded throughout the forest.

“An elephant?! Is that someone’s familiar?!” Xero exclaimed. “Let’s go!” Xero shouted and all the Devils stood up at once, he deactivated all their restraints including his own and pulled out Edge.

“Sire, i feel a very menacing aura ahead.” Edge said.

Xero did not reply as they moved towards the sound.

BOOM! BRAHHHH! ROAR!

The sound of explosions and a very resounding roar from what seemed like a dragon could be heard.

When they finally broke into the savaged zone of forest, what they saw was a strange sight.

Close to them was a 4 meter tall Elephant. What was strange about this creature was that its body had a metallic shine, it wasn’t a normal shine like from other monsters with ‘metallic’ elements on their armor. This one actually had a very tight hide on its body, not looking fat and it looked like perfectly polished metal armor. Even the very powerful tusks were shining with a metallic shine.

Behind it was a boy Xero’s age. Looking at the other side, Xero’s face bleached as he saw the creature. It wasn’t a Dragon but it was close and one word came to mind, Dinosaur.

Dinosaurs are an immensely rare summon because these are prehistoric creatures and in countless parallel worlds there are few that maintained these creatures who didn’t evolve.

Standing in front of the Elephant, a strange two legged Dinosaur with shriveled up front arms with no use and a huge head with massive jaws. It stood 8 meters tall and 20 long but after looking it over and seeing those strange markings, something felt off.

“Hey, what is this?” Xero shouted.

The boy turned and looked at Xero, “You’re Xero…” He said.

Xero froze a moment and tried to think of whether he knew this boy.

“Leave it for later master. What is going on?!” Ashley asked.

“Huhu! My beautiful self took up a mission at the adventurers guild and came to hunt in this forest but this person appeared suddenly.” He said in a strangely self centered manner pointing across the space.

Standing there was a man in back robes and two glowing red eyes were visible from under his hood.

A chill ran down Xero’s spine and he instantly was on alert of this man.

“Master, I sense Demon Corruption particles from those two.” Ashley said, making the situation even worse.

“Divine being… come to the side of the chosen cause!” The man said and extended his hand. The hand was ash grey skin with glowing red tattoo that Xero was very familiar with appeared on the man’s hand.

“Master, that man has been corrupted by a demon.” Ashley said, instantly drawing her sword.

“Is that why he is so strange?” Xero said, shivering.

“His corruption was done artificially, I can feel it, his familiar was forced to absorb demon mana and corrupting particles that corrupted them both.” Ashley said.

“The great cause shall blanket the world! Our gods have arrived and now we shall rule!” He said dark words making everyone shiver as the large corrupt T-rex roared.

“Kill it!” Xero shouted and Ashley jumped up and turned into her demon form with her bastard sword. It was suddenly covered in blue white flames and she swung it in a simple vertical slash.

The attack was too fast and too powerful for the creature that wasn’t a true demon and was even below level 30. The master that was standing behind it though was able to react instantly as the flame slash sliced the dinosaur in half.

The Dinosaur burst into blue flames and roared in pain before it was recalled.

“Divine one! Why do you attack your people?!” the man exclaimed.

Sha! Sha! Sha! Sha! Sha! Sha! Sha! Sha!

The wind blew rapidly as the man was suddenly surrounded by armored demons in their demon form with their sword drawn.

The man was trembling but not of fear but out of excitement. “THE DIVINE HAVE DESCENDED!” he exclaimed.

Ashley landed and looked at him with disgust. “It's a corrupted human.” She said at once.

The face of the two boys showed shock before their faces turned to frown.

“Kill him.” Ashley said.

“Wait!” Xero shouted, “Capture him, we can question him back home.” Xero said.

Ashley stopped a moment before nodding. The first earth sword devil stabbed his sword into the ground and at once a large stone box formed before cracking and forming compressed stone bars and turned into a jail cell and kept compressing until it was only 1x1x 2 meters large.

After that the cage rose and the earth began to take a unique shape until it formed a for wheeled cart that the earth Sword Devil Minion used it's magic to move.

“Divine ones? What is this?” the man asked.

“Silence!” Ashley said.

The man instantly became timid causing everyone to look shocked by the development and look at each other.

The Sword Devils returned to their devil form and Xero walked over to the boy, “Who are you?” he asked.

“... we are classmates…” he said, a bit startled. He then coughed, “I’m sure you have heard of the gorgeous me!” he said and used light magic to make sparkling lights around himself.

“So who are you?” Xero asked.

“I’m the beautiful Rus Dorian.” He said posing.

“Dorian? Isn’t that the name of the Bard father in law is helping train?” Ashley asked.

“Yeah.” Xero nodded. “Hey, want to come with us cause this might be serious and not safe.” Xero said.

“Of course, the beautiful me and my adorable and beautiful familiar will go and bless your town with our beauty.” Rus said.

Everyone was just silent and turned to start walking while he happily jumped onto the back of his elephant where there were actually some mats and covers on the back of the creature.

The travel back was very noisy, the elephant simply trampled through the forest.

At the gate, he also didn’t want to get off until Xero had the devils drag him off and force him to unsummon the massive familiar which left him pouting and complaining how his beauty could only be complimented by a beautiful mount and other annoying complaints.

“Quickly call my father, this is very important!” Xero ordered the knight at the gate and headed to the manor.

“Understood young master, the city lord has just left and should be easy to catch up too!” the knight said and quickly called for several men and horses.

Xero and the others walk into the city while closing up the cage leaving only holes from above to make sure the man is not seen and public chaos ensues from this serious event.