“I am rather sorry it ended up this way, Landon”

“Worry not, master Runfar. You probably did not know that place was the Lake of the Dead, frankly, you were lucky to emerge unscathed save for a few scratches, torn clothing, and lost mask. Many who jump into that water never come back.”

Apparently, even the fishermen fear the Lake of the Dead, especially at night, when the Water Spirits are most active.

“Still, while I was goofing around, you collected all the needed herbs and supplies, well done, Landon”

“Thank you for your praise, Master Runfar”

The very next day, they rode the carriage back with the supplies Landon bought from the markets.

‘I feel a little bad for forcing her to buy everything alone without not being able to offer as little as help.’

To be fair, master. We were busy as well.

‘That’s true. Though, I am lucky she believed my unbelievably fake cover story, what kind of a loon intentionally goes to swim in a lake at night? My image in the eyes of the staff might plummet after this!’

It is better than having them know who you truly are, master. Though, I am curious, how exactly do you know that Hero, the one you call Knight of Light?

‘That’s another problem altogether. But let’s just say that she is someone we must avoid at all cost. If she catches us in the act that might as well be the end of us. Right now, none of us are strong enough to contest against her. I never thought I will have to face her again, I thought I managed to kill her the last time, but apparently not even a severe slash to the back is enough to keep her down for long! What a monster…’

Are there any other Heroes at her caliber?

‘Not sure. I have met only a few individuals who bear the title of hero. And she was the strongest one of them all. But if I had to give someone who is closest to her in terms of power, then that would be Knight of Night, Larat Lemuri’

She did mention name Lemuri…So that’s who she was talking about…How strong is this person, master said he was comparable to Knight of Light, but she was scary strong…so is he as well….

‘Let’s just say that if I had a choice between fighting him and a dragon, I would choose the dragon without a second hesitation.’

I see. So our situation really is this bad huh…

‘Yep, knights and Heroes of Holy Order were enough of a pain in the ass, but now we have Knight of Light to worry about. It’s just one bad situation after the next….Might as well stop complaining and take care of things, problems are not gonna go away by themselves.’

Though he advocated rational thought, Morphus could feel that Dark Lord was indeed infuriated with the fact that someone as strong as Knight of Light was still alive.

If zombie plan works well, then Dark Lord may have bought them a couple of weeks, at most a month of not needing to worry about Knight of Light, but it was simply delaying the inevitable.

Soon, they will have to confront her as well.

Back then, even when she was injured, Morphus could feel the power of Solaris’s blessing on her, the minute she woke up, any chance of killing her off had disappeared.

Morphus fought mainly with his wings, using the feathers as projectiles and wings themselves as blades, but other than that, his fighting capacity was limited due to his inexperience. He knew full well that even if he were to attack her at his fastest, she would be able to react in an instant.

Such was the power of the seed of Solaris, the blessing he gave her allowed her to grow so much in power.

Blessing in a sense allows the user access to some type of power, but the power has to be honed and trained by the user to become effective.

The difference between a hero and an ordinary knight bestowed with the same type of blessing is the difference between individual talent, experience, and skill. A person with a blessing could reach the level of a hero only by subjecting himself to arduous training.

That is why there were so few heroes compared to Knights and Holy Knights. It was simply that hard to reach that level.

With the mental conversation going on between Dark Lord and Morphus, Landon felt a little lonely as she was guiding the carriage back to the Sevilles mansion.

The servants now greeted them, and unlike their previous master whom they greeted mainly out of reluctant obligation, they displayed rather obvious enthusiasm that their new master had returned.

‘Well, at least the staff does not suspect a thing’

But how did the Shadow Lords, some of whom are disguised as butlers and maids have it during his absence?

After the night set, Dark Lord followed Camilla to the hidden dungeon within the mansion. All the other Shadow Lords were waiting inside.

“After Master left, we caught an intruder, or more accurately Camilla found him and I beat him” Meros explained.

“Is that so? Well done, Camilla, Meros.”

“Thank you, milord; Camilla is happy milord is pleased.”

“Now then, what exactly are you guys doing with him?”

A man, obviously an assassin, was strapped to a chair, with his arms and legs bound with chains. He was a bald man with a large dragon shaped tattoos extending down his face towards his body. He was obviously muscular.

He wasn’t wearing a shirt, so a certain mark on his left hand was clearly visible, the mark resembled waves of the wind.

“What an interesting blessing he possesses, any idea what is does?”

“His blessing allows him to eliminate sounds he produces and in a sense it erases traces of his presence, if it weren’t for Camilla’s detection ability, then he could have sneaked in without any problems.” Kyra Kara answered.

Dark Lord now noticed that there was a strange change with the Dark Wolf demon, her black hair was now flame colored.

“What happened to your hair?”

“I asked Camilla to change it; I never liked having black hair anyways.”

Camilla could alter appearance of him and others; changing hair color of a person was a simple task for him.

“So, we pretty much decided to interrogate him, though so far we did not get any information out of him, he refused to talk, no matter what we did.” Lake apparently tried to intimidate the assassin, but to no avail.

“I told you we should have just have cut him up into pieces, and then keep cutting piece by piece until only a squirming torso remains…”

Jun, the Shadow Lord who was the resident serial killer answered with a giggling smile.

Granted, Dark Lord did intend for her to become bloodthirsty killer by teaching her the art of murder, though it seems like she learned the lesson all too well.

Even the other members of Shadow Lords were terrified with her suggestion; only one who was not surprised was Dark Lord, who found her suggestion to be a little childish.

‘But being childish with such matters is fine, though in this kind of situation, a little different approach is required.’

“Well done, Shadow Lords, you have well exceeded my expectations. Though, for this task, I would ask you to leave it to your humble master.”

Dark Lord took a hammer and approached the prisoner.

Locking eyes with the prisoner, Dark Lord smiled.

“Shall we begin?”

“I will never talk!”

“I am not here to make you talk.”

Dark Lord now proceeded to strike the helpless assassin with hammer on his leg, assassin screamed.

“That makes one leg, and here comes the second one.”

Another scream followed.

“Right arm?”

Screaming followed with sobbing.

“Left arm?”

Assassin’s limbs were now pointing in the directions they were never supposed to naturally point.

And Dark Lord was not stopping at one strike per limb, he kept pounding and pounding ahead, strike after strike, hammer left many large bruises.

He delivered more than thirty blows with a hammer.

Now the assassin was almost unrecognizable, only his body outline remained, all the places he was struck in, his limbs and the non-lethal areas on his body were bloated up.

Shadow Lords watched in shock as their master personally turned a person into a pinkish purple mush of meat. That was honestly the only way of describing the sorry state the assassin was in.

Only Jun watched with a smile filled with delight, she was obviously enjoying the show.

The prisoner was still alive, Dark Lord made sure not to damage any vital organs, but he made sure to make it as painful as possible.

“Well the ground meat is ready now, only thing left now is to cook it.”

Dark Lord proceeded to pour alcohol on the defenseless prisoner.

The prisoner was now screaming as the alcohol was interacting with his bloody bruises, it must have stung rather badly, preventing him from passing out from pain.

With a flick of a match upon the dungeon wall, Dark Lord proceeded to set the man on fire.

Assassin screamed as he was literally being cooked alive on the spot.

Dark Lord had the prisoner burn for the next two minutes before adding even more alcohol, after the assassin’s skin completely melted off; leaving burned muscle tissue he stopped the fire with a bucket of water.

“Before you die, I will be taking this from you.”

Dark Lord stabbed assassin’s left hand’s area with the mark on it, the mark was still on the hand even with all skin melted off, apparently the mark of the blessing is not so easy to erase, it runs very deep.

“Kuat Endi Meniki” Dark Lord whispered, now the mark on the assassin’s arm was transferred into the crystal dagger.

Now Dark Lord approached Camilla.

“For your loyalty, I wish to bestow you with his power.”

“Milord, I am afraid I must decline. His blessing is stealth, I already have such abilities, and in fact mine are superior to it. It would be of no use to me.”

“I see. In that case. Meros?”

“I think I will take you up on your offer, master.”

“Kneel.”

Meros now kneeled on one knee in front of Dark Lord.

“Think of this as a reward” Dark Lord now placed the blade upon Meros’s shoulder, carefully making sure the blade did not cut through him.

“Kuat Endi Seniki”

Now the mark appeared on Meros’s left hand, the artificial hand Dark Lord had made him just a few days ago. He now possessed the blessing of stealth.

“As for everyone else, if you capture more enemies with blessings, I can bestow them upon you, that way we can obtain more power for our cause.”

Now facing the almost dead prisoner, Dark Lord proceeded to carve the teleportation seal on his cooked flesh.

“Master, if you wished to interrogate him, why didn’t you use my demon eye?” Kyra Kara asked.

“There is no need, I already know everything. He was sent by Onlegio noble family because of their daughter wanting revenge on me. She is rather petty, I must say.”

“Milord did throw her out of the window.” Camilla nervously laughed.

“Well she had it coming. Anyways, interrogating him was not necessary….Well, I hope goblins like roasted meat.”

The body was now teleported away, without a doubt to the goblin nest.

Then Dark Lord proceeded to leave.

Other Shadow Lords followed the suit, except Meros and Lake.

“Congratulations, Meros. You now have a blessing.”

“Thank you, but if it is fine with you, may I ask you something that has been concerning me for a while?”

“Go ahead”

“I wonder what could have made master the way he is now.” Meros wondered.

“I do not know, he seems like a gentle person by nature, but somehow, it seems like he was severely twisted but not broken. Just imagining what could have done such damage to him is scary.”

“I suppose we could always ask, but somehow I feel like we better are better off not knowing.”

“Agreed”

Even with the goal of destroying human kingdom, Shadow Lords were still a little shaken with the brutality Dark Lord showed to his enemies.

At moments like these, they were happy they were on his side.

* * *

“Finally! I can sleep, without worrying about Knight of Light or anyone else tormenting me in the morning, what a relief!”

Runfar proceeded to lie on his bed, even though he did not require sleep, the recent days were so stressful that he was looking forward to his rest on his own bed.

But then, he received a mental message from goblin side.

“Master, your servant asks for permission to speak.”

“Permission granted. What is it Goblin Captain? ” Dark Lord asked with a little bit annoyed tone.

“Our spies have found a cave where mercenaries are residing but we can smell strong mana coming from their direction, they are not too far away, within Tracoa territory hills.”

“I see. I will inspect it personally tomorrow. Dismissed”

“Yes master.” Goblin Captain now was no longer speaking, but Dark Lord sighed in annoyance.

“First Knight of Light, then assassins, now mercenaries… Why can’t I ever catch a break in this messed up world?”