‘Well, this bedroom seems very dark and smelly, it is very tight, filled with strange, poky, round objects…It’s rather uncomfortable….Maybe if I adjust the way I am lying on the bed it would make it comfier…’

Ren Karatengu, the demon who without knowing it himself, is the leader of Tengu group that entered the Second Trial, was currently napping inside a large barrel filled with specially made explosives.

The explosives resembled clay balls with magical symbols inscribed on them, each one had massive amount of destructive mana stored within it.

To activate one, the bomb simply needed to be thrown and hit something and it would immediately create a gigantic explosion.

One explosive was strong enough to completely demolish a wall of a small castle, so the potency of the explosives was not a joke.

Baris clan had prepared these explosives to counter the powers of stronger clans, specifically the Draco clan and Altyn clan, dragon and phoenix demons respectively.

As an old tale goes, the Tiger demons were strong, they considered themselves to be the strongest demons walking the earth, but dragon and phoenix demons held not only earth, but sky in their grasp. A Dragon and Phoenix demon clans were unreachable peaks, the heights the Tiger demons strived to overcome.

While Crow demons held animosity towards Phoenix demons specifically, Tiger demons held both Draco clan and Altyn clan in such a view. No matter what, they had to overcome those two clans, Draco clan was already on decline, so they should be easy enough to handle, but that still leaves the matters with mighty Altyn clan of Phoenix demons.

Unless damaged by powerful magic, Phoenix demons can regenerate any damage to their body. In a sense, they were semi-immortal, unless they were killed, they could easily live on for centuries, all the while maintaining their youthful appearance; such was the case for those with ‘pure’ Phoenix demon blood.

Those with diluted blood, specifically those whose blood had been mixed with other prominent demon types, tended to not have the same potent regenerative power.

If a Phoenix type demons mates with bird type demon, then the resulting child will be a pure blooded Phoenix demon, most of them time.

But if the Phoenix demon were to mate with, say, a wolf type demon, then the child would be considered only a half Phoenix, thus an ‘impure’ of blood.

Those demons tended to be considered second class demons in Altyn clan, in sense a, servants. They were allowed to bear the Altyn clan name, but they were designated to branch family instead of a main family. The main family had only few members while the branch family had very many in their ranks.

Still, even if they were considered inferior to pure Phoenix demons, they were still held higher in regard compared to non-Phoenix demons. Altyn clan held a view that Phoenix demons were the ultimate type of demons, thus they deserved to rule above all others and that was their creed and belief.

Yet, the crow demons kept fighting against them, but ultimately they were almost driven to extinction.

Baris clan of Tiger demons, on the other hand, was still prominent and active, they had many members and their numbers grew year by year. Their greatest ambition was to seize the throne of Demon King and demonstrate their superiority to Altyn clan. Unlike Karatengu clan, who picked a fight with Altyn clan in the past and lost, they bid their time, gathering their forces and adding in to their strength.

A testament to their power, all of the thirty participants from the Baris clan were bronze ranked demons, only one step away from reaching the power level of Demon Lords. While it was a relatively simple matter, with enough training and time, a demon could reach bronze rank in power, but stepping into the realm of Demon Lords, the nigh-unreachable silver rank, was no easy task.

Nay, it is said that many of the Demon Lords of the past were originally high bronze ranked demons, only stepping into Silver rank after Demon King shared his power with them. Reaching a rank of Demon Lord and attaining a title of Demon Lord were two different things, though suffice it to say, those who were appointed to be Demon Lords always stepped into the realm of Demon Lords, reaching the silver rank in the process.

Without Demon King’s aid, it is still possible to reach the level of Demon Lord, but it is extremely difficult, so difficult in fact that none of the younger generation so far, as far as most demons knew, had managed to achieve that level.

Though, most of the Demon Lords who served under Akil Ras had already reached the level of Demon Lord before being appointed to that title. Korgan Karatengu in particular, was already a silver ranked demon when Akil Ras made him a Demon Lord, which boosted his power up to the level of gold ranked demon.

Though, with age, Korgan’s power declined, now he was no longer a gold ranked, but a high silver ranked demon, still, he was still not someone an ordinary demon would want to mess with.

Still, the Baris clan’s thirty participants were not exactly lucky. As soon as they entered the water gates of the second trial, they were falling from the sky, hitting what was underneath them.

The lucky ones roughly landed on land, but the unlucky ones landed straight into the long stretches of rivers, killing them instantly, their corpses rapidly dissolving in foam of steam and gore.

Now, the surviving Baris clan members were slowly waking up, unaware of the extra demon one of the tiger demons was now carrying within a barrel strapped to his back.

* * *

“How many survived?” Arang Baris asked of his subordinate.

“Sixteen, my liege.” The young tiger type demons meekly replied

“Tsk, so fourteen of us are missing then? We will need to find them and regroup…”

“Um, boss, I think I know where they are.”

One of the Baris clan members pointed to the body of water, there, floating, were familiar clothing, those were the armored clothing with striped patterns, although it was slightly redundant, some in Baris clan preferred to wear striped clothing that matched their bodily exterior.

“What in the world…Aah!” one of the Baris clan members tried to pull the piece of clothing out of the water, only to feel an undeniable sensation of burn upon his hand, he immediately withdrew his hand, only to find it critically damaged.

He might as well have put his hand into a blazing hot cauldron, the damage was rather serious.

Baris clan members were now alarmed, the water was everywhere around them, and it seems like water was not as innocent as it seemed.

“Holy water” Arang Baris muttered under his breath. “I see, I should have expected as much from the Great Ones. Everyone, if you value your life, stray away from the river!”

He now maintained a distance of half a meter before the water before proceeding to bow on a single knee.

“We were lucky to survive, our comrades, the ones who came with us have lost their lives to let us live. Let us honor their memory by making sure to succeed in this trial. Upon my name I swear, we shall prevail.”

“Upon our name we swear, we shall prevail.” The other Tiger type demons followed their leader’s example, thus praying for the safe passage of their deceased comrades towards eternal rest.

Once their prayer was finished, they now proceeded to pick up their stuff, including their gigantic barrels, and started to walk forward.

Crossing the river was a no no, but if their instincts were right, they had to follow the flow of the river, but the side they stood on seemed to not have enough land. Luckily, when they looked into the distance, they saw a dam, which had blocked an enormous amount of water from flowing down.

The presence of a dam meant a safe structure for them to cross towards the other side, the side which had more land, thus allowing them to follow the river on land.

It was simply perfect. A dam in such a place would mean that they still had a chance to succeed.

This was a trial after all; Great Ones wouldn’t make the trial impossible; otherwise there would be no purpose of having a trial in the first place.

Yet, while they were crossing the bridge over the dam, one of the clumsier Baris clan members ended up almost dropping an explosive, which Arang barely managed to catch.

“Are you crazy?! You almost blew us up to smithereens!”

Such was the power of the magical explosives, if used right, they were their key for triumphing against the other clans with sheer fire power, but if used wrongly, it could kill them all.

Baris clan’s elders specifically told them to be cautious in their usage of the explosives; otherwise, they would be in mortal peril.

With the clumsy tiger demon repeatedly apologizing, Baris clan resumed their pace across the dam.

Arang couldn’t help but look below, at the water flowing down through the dam, but the amount of water the dam was blocking was enormous. With the dam in place, the flow of water was rather tame, he could not imagine what would happen if the dam were to break.

Luckily, they were a cautious bunch, they were strong, but they were no fools, each one was a strong demon with grand ambitions, and an unshakable goal.

If everything goes right, there was nothing that could stop them.

What he failed to notice was an arm that was peeking itself out of one of the barrels Baris clan members were carrying. The arm was picking up stuff and throwing them out of the barrel in order to free up some space.

‘Too rough’

The arm proceeded to throw away one of the Baris clan member’s belongings, specifically, one of his boots.

‘Too smelly’

Wrapped up cheese in a cloth was thrown out of the bag.

‘Too wet’

Now the arm proceeded to throw out one of the water flasks.

“What is this thing? It feels round like a ball…Well, who cares, it’s out as well!”

Now he proceeded to throw the ball-like thing out of the barrel.

When flew up into the air, Arang’s gaze caught sight of the explosive flying into the air. Knowing immediately what was about to happen, he ran as fast as he could to stop the explosive from striking the bridge on top of the dam they were standing upon, but it was too late.

“NOOOOOOOO….”

His loud shout was cut short with the explosive landing several meters away from the barrel it was thrown from, followed immediately with a loud sound.

BOOOOOOM!

The dam was completely destroyed; the water it was holding back was unleashed in a wild torrent of uncontrollable waves, surging down like a force of nature, waiting to smite everything below it.

Some of the Baris clan members died after being caught in explosion, the others that managed to live through the explosion were swept up by the torrent of water, swallowing them whole.

The only thing that was unharmed was a barrel that was now afloat above the water, with its drunken occupant still sleeping in peace.

* * *

“We were lucky to have landed here; all fifty of us were unharmed” Kin Altyn, the third son of Altyn clan, now looked over the Altyn clan’s participants.

All five sons of Altyn clan were participating; each one of the five had nine underlings, thus ending up with fifty members in total.

“It is as expected; after all, our clan is destined to rule.” Jang Altyn, the second son replied with confidence.

“Don’t let your guard down, you should emulate our elder brother, he would never be so overconfident, right, elder brother?” the fourth son, Rall Altyn now asked of Zirc Altyn, who seemed to be spacing out.

Zirc now gestured to Rall to stop talking with his palm.

“Strange, I can hear something…”

Then, a gigantic wild torrent of water appeared out of nowhere.

They were caught off guard, just a second ago, the water seemed so calm but now it was racing towards them at alarming speed.

“INCOMING!”

Using their wings they tried to fly up, but the powerful water engulfed them like a tsunami, swallowing them with its mighty aquatic jaws.

They were of course, unaware, that this happened due to the dam that held all the water back being destroyed, but currently, they had much bigger concerns at their hands, they were going to find out the hard way that this was no ordinary water….