"Countess, it looks like you have someone very eager to lose a battle," the leader of City of Rising Sun said in jest with his voice still echoing over the dunes.

The Countess didn't respond. The burst of strength from her side had startled her. It wasn't the level of the strength itself. It was the feeling of anger that went along with the strength. She was quite sensitive to emotions. She looked up to see Night's shadow moving forward in The now shady desert.

Night's mind went blank at the realization that one of the Osir Clans corpse warriors was his old mentor Mr. Lester. His mind was spinning but he was still able to connect the dots. If he was a corpse warrior, then that meant that Mr. Lester was already dead. At the realization of his old friend's death, Night felt his bottled rage overwhelm him as he darted out to the trough of the dunes to meet the opponent in front of him.

As he started to get close, the five corpse warriors include Mr. Lester began to move in his direction to attack.

"Keres, I need your help. Quickly. Kill all of the ones in front of me except....Misery....one of the corpse soldiers is Mr. Lester...don't destroy his body...protect yourselves....I have the red eyed man," Night said with so much emotion in his voice that it hurt the women.

Night had already gathered the three blood stones in his hand and was injecting his own energy into the stones to build up strength for the bodies to form quickly. As he continued to move forward, he tossed the three blood stones up high into the air. In a burst of blood, three women's bodies formed in a blink from the stones and the winged women swooped forward to meet the corpse soldiers in combat.

The entire scene had happened externally quick and the sight taken all the demon clans present by surprise. From the dark skies to the women that appeared out of nowhere, none of them had expected the sudden changes. Even though Countess Asta had known that Night was strong, she didn't know he had all of these powers.

In a split second, the three Keres were showing that they were much stronger than the corpse warriors. The Keres had practically destroyed three of the corpse soldiers instantly and had already moved to their next task.

As Misery and Grief moved forward to secure Mr. Lester's body, Distress had went after the remaining corpse soldier by herself. The destruction of the three corpse soldiers had happened so quickly that they beat Night's arrival in front of the Osir warrior. Before the startled man could pull a weapon, Night was upon him with a hand clutching the demon's throat and a knife at his heart. The knife was not pushed in deep and seemed to be resting a hair's width away from taking the man's life.

However, it wasn't the actual physical attack that was doing the most damage. Night had overlaid his views of the physical and soul on his approach. Reaching out with his will, he had grabbed the man's soul in his grasp and was squeezing the shit out of it.

Night looked over to see Misery currently holding down the corpse soldier that was once Mr. Lester, then he glanced back at the man in his grip.

"Tell me the story behind that corpse. If you refuse or lie, I will hunt down every member of your clan and exterminate them all," Night said with a voice full of emotion. He had reached a point of anger that exceeded his own capacity and something inside of him had broken.

Of course, cracks had already formed in his own subconsious when his parents had died, they had widened when he was betrayed and made a slave....and with the sight of his old mentor's corpse...those cracks had widened to the point that something finally broke to pieces.

"uggggg....uggggggg," the Osir was trying to talk but couldn't due to Night's grip on his throat.

"Can't speak.....then I will find out another way," Night said menacingly as he exerted his soul's will on the man's soul.

While all of this was going on, no one had made a move to stop the fight. Even the Gods had not moved. It wasn't because they didn't want to either. None of them could tell was was going on since a darkness had descended upon the area that the battle was taking place in.

"What is this trickery, Asta?," the leader of the Rising Sun yelled.

"There is no trickery, you fool. This is power. Even a simpleton could feel it. My son-in-law will be done with your man shortly," Countess Asta yelled back in response. She had some concern on her face due to the level of Night's anger. Although these battles were to gain the leadership position, they weren't necessarily battles to the death. If Night killed the man, future negotiations would be troublesome.

Sure enough, the darkness settled and the crowd got a full view of the battlefield. The Osir clansman was slumped face down on the ground in front of Night. Two of the winged women were gone and the remaining one was holding a corpse warrior over her shoulder as she walked with Night back toward Countess Asta.

Arriving next to Countess Asta, Night looked at her and said, "I have some business to take care of."

Night then walked past the crowd and toward the tents that had been setup in the City of Setting Sun's camp.

Once inside the tent, Misery laid down Mr. Lester's body on a rug and looked up at Night. "What happened to him?," she said with some emotion in her voice.

"The Osir Clan was raiding a mid-sized oasis controlled by two demigods of the Diego Family. During the battle, one of the slaves had turned on his masters and punched one of the demigods in the back. The punch destroyed the demigods heart and he died instantly. However, the remaining demigod had stabbed the slave directly in the chest with a sword and killed him on the spot. The Osir probably wouldn't have won the battle if it were not for Mr. Lester's action. The Osir Clan had thought that the action was honorable, so they decided to gift the man's body by allowing it to become a corpse soldier. The clan invested many of their resources to strengthen the body to the point it is now. Those demons didn't have anything to do with his death," Night said. His voice sounded like he was emotionlessly reading a book.

Even though he was merciless when he pulled the information out of the Osir clansman's soul, Night did not kill the man. As he extracted the information from an abused soul form of the man....Night realized that the man truely believed that he had honored Mr. Lester's body by turning him into a corpse warrior. To the Clan of The Dead, a body getting turned into a corpse warrior was a high honor.

Some time passed by inside the tent, Misery and Night sat down for a while simply looking over the old man's body. Every now and then one of them would tell a short story about something that he did that was funny or stupid. They also voiced their shared concerns for Karine and Sonia Carmine. The women was two of the only connections that the two of them had for Earth.

"We need yo get stronger....and we need to eliminate the fucking Diego Family," Night said, "They only contribute to the pain and suffering of others."

"I couldn't agree more," came a man's voice from outside of the tent. Night had been so distracted by what was happening that he hadn't been paying attention to what was going on outside.

"May we Please come in?," the voice sounded once again.

"Yes," Night said as he stood waiting for the whoever it was to enter.

The cloth covering the entrance to the tent was pulled back to reveal dark skies. Both Night and Misery hadn't realized that so much time had elapsed. Three people walked into the tent. One older man had the Osir clan member that was defeated on his shoulder. The man was still unconscious because Night had put him in a sleep so that he could take Mr. Lester's body away without a struggle.

The other two people caught Night by surprise. Countess Asta and Count Agrat were both following the old man.

"What are you here for?," Night asked the three people without any politeness in his voice. He wasn't in the mood to be polite.

"Can you awaken my son? Both Gods have tried to resolve the issue, but neither can. I apologize for any offence we may have caused. If I can make reparations for what we have done to offend you, feel free to ask...but please release my son from this sleep," the old man said in a subdued manner.

Night looked at the old man and asked, "What will become of my friend's body if I awaken your son?"

"Our corpse warriors are instilled with our own blood and resources to fight along side of us. If you allow, I would request that you continue to allow your honorable friend to fight with us in our battle against the Diego Family," the old Osir Clan man said in an honest tone.

"ha ha ha ha ha hah," Night burst out laughing all of a sudden as he turned to look at the woman behind him, "Misery, what do you think? Do you think that old bastard would get a kick out of his dead body killing his enemies?"

Night's response to the question had taken all three people off guard, but they didn't say anything.

Misery looked back at Night with a glint in her eyes, "Yes. That old fucker would be laughing endlessly if his corpse was killing off his enemies. He would be spouting all sorts of stupid shit as usual."

Then there was a silence in the room.

"Ya....that's what I think too," Night said as he reached his hand forward and touched the head of the Osir Clan man that he had fought.

The man opened his eyes and sat up. He immediately moved himself away from Night as if he had seen a the ruler of hell. He scurried toward his father and actually embraced the old man just like a child would.

"What happened?," the young man asked his father with a trembling voice.

Before the old man could respond, Night spoke.

"One of your corpse warriors is from the body of my friend. I will allow you to continue using his body to kill the Diego Family. However, if I ever hear of something despicable being done with his corpse, I will hunt you down....and no one will be able to stop me," Night said in threat. He had fully unleashed his Death Concept and it was rolling off him waves. He really wanted to kill someone.

"Sir, he would never do something dishonorable," the old man stepped between Night and his son. He then said, "Please excuse us so that I may be able to treat my son."

The corpse of Mr. Lester was still laying on the ground. The old Osir man walked over and touched the body. It was stored in his storage ring.

"A suggestion. Unless you are trying to draw a particular reaction from your opponent, I would suggest putting masks on your corpse warriors.....to see a dead friend moving around....it is a bit hard....even for me," Night said before the two men from the Osir Clan turned and walked out of the tent.

Countess Asta and Count Agrat were both still standing in the tent staring at Night.

"May we take a seat? There are a few things that we would like to discuss," Countess Asta asked in a reasonable tone.

"Sure," Night said as he reached out his hand to touch Misery's back. Her body started to liquidize into a pool of blood and be absorbed into the blood stone. After her body was completely absorbed, the blood stone came to rest in Night's hand. Taking the blood stone, Night moved it back to his eye and put it in place. The whole process had taken at least a minute, but the Count and Countess hadn't moved from their spot by the entrance to the tent. They were just staring at Night's eye now.

"What? I thought you wanted to sit," Night said as he flopped back into a chair.

The two leaders moved to take a seat.

"You too sure seem friendly," Night said, "Earlier it seemed like you wanted to fight each other."

"You can call it a momentary truce," Countess Asta said with an alluring grin, "This one is still pissed that his younger brother became my mate instead of himself."

"Oh...you Sucubbi sure are fucked up.....messing with two brothers even," Night said. He had completely lost any bit of control over his words.

"ha ha ha.....I couldn't have said it better myself.....Human," Count Agrat said.

"You Incubi seem interesting too...similar to the Succubi in always trying to get emotion out of someone," Night said not even flenching at the god's mention of his humanity.

"I can see why my Niece chose this one as a mate," Count Agrat said to the Countess before turning back to Night.

"But I guess we should get to the point.....everyone's patience seems to be running thin," Count Agrat said with a slight pulse of his own strength.

"Yes...to the point," Countess Asta said, "Night, we would like for you to go on a mission for us?"

"What type of mission?," Night asked as he looked at the two City leaders.

"Since you are a human on our side, we would like to see if you can get some more information on the human's City for us. They seem to have developed a method to check for demons as we have stopped hearing from any of the spies sent to gain intelligence recently," Count Agrat said.

"So what information do you want me to gather? And how quickly?," Night asked.

"Some general information and military intelligence," Count Agrat said, "Basically....whatever you can find that will help us fight the Diego Family. If you manage to get information on their Gods' strength or the poison used against the South...I would be delighted."

The two leaders had seemed to be preparing to give a bit more information on the mission, but they were interrupted by Night.

"Sure, I'll go to Nazca City," Night said unexpectedly, "But let's talk about the details tomorrow. I would like to rest now."

Both Countess Asta and Count Agrat smiled and left the room. The two were both demons that specialized in emotion and they could tell that no more talk was needed tonight. The amount of bloodlust that Night emitted when he said Nazca City was enough for them both to taste in the air.