‘A monstrously powerful demon that attacked us during the Second Trial, the one who murdered Lodos, heavily injured and almost killed me….Is cooking right in front of me’

Lotus Draco’s right eye twitched at the absurdity of her situation.

While she looked calm and composed, her shaking tail betrayed the absolute fear she felt within her heart.

He was the demon who plagued her in her dreams, turning them into nightmares. Every time she would see him in her dreams, he would stab and butcher her while laughing, and she would wake up, holding on to the place she was stabbed by him.

While her wounds have closed and mostly healed, at times she would feel sharp pain coursing through her abdomen, the very place he stabbed her with his razor sharp hand. The wound would pulse, in an agonizing fashion, reminding her of the one who inflicted it.

But now, he was right in front of her, cooking.

The demon she feared….He was right here, in the form of her husband to be, turning her worst nightmare into an undeniable reality. The reality she had no hope of escaping.

‘And I just offered myself and my clan to him on a silver platter?! How did this happen?!’

The young Dragon demon lamented the misfortune of her situation.

Lotus wanted to cry, but she made sure not to display any emotions on her face. She wanted to scream as loud as her throat permitted to, but she still made no sound.

Above all, she wanted to fly out that room as fast as she could, but she knew that if she did that, her clan would be doomed.

Karatengu Ren was currently cooking, assisted by a white fox demon.

The fox demon’s outfit contrasted Ren’s.

While Ren was wearing primarily black colored kimono, the fox demon was wearing a white kimono with bluish outlines.

Due to fox demon acting masculine and the way he dressed, Lotus, who was initially confused at the fox demon’s gender, came to a conclusion that he was a male demon.

Ren kept calling the fox demon ‘Akjan’, and Lotus assumed this ‘Akjan’ was Ren’s right hand man.

‘That Fox demon’s aura, it’s very strong….but not quite at the level of the Demon Lords’

Lotus’s keen senses allowed her to pick up on the individual power that each one of the occupants of the room possessed.

Within the room, she could sense overwhelming power from the two Demon Lords, Korgan Karatengu and Sento Draco.

Aside from those two, none seemed to be at the level of the Demon Lord. But there were many demons that were, while not at the level of Demon Lord; were still remarkably strong.

Looking around the room, she saw two familiar faces, Kizilkoz Ras and Korkau Jou.

Those demons she had met in the past due to two different circumstances.

Lotus’s father, Rorin Draco, was once a loyal subject to the Demon King, Akil Ras, at least until he chose to support the endeavor of invading the human realm and betrayed Akil Ras.

Rorin Draco even went as far as teleporting himself and his subordinates to the world of Alem, to initiate his conquest of the human kingdom. But sadly, the human world had its own protector, the Sword Lord, who ended up defeating Rorin Draco, leaving him with fatal injuries, with his subordinates dragging him back to the demon world of Sulum.

His injuries were severe and he did not have long to live.

On his deathbed, he appointed Lotus, the eldest of his three daughters, as his successor.

While he always desired to have a son, but he ended up having a daughter from all three of his wives. Which is why, he had to reluctantly appoint Lotus as the next head of the Draco clan.

Ever since then, Lotus had been plagued with the burden of leading her declining clan.

In one of such instances, she ended up clashing against Korkau Jou, a powerful demon who was leading his own clan.

As leaders of two powerful clans, their confrontation was inevitable.

Their duel ended in stalemate, but Lotus could sense that Korkau, like her was at the brink of reaching the power of the Demon Lord, but also like her, he was not quite there yet.

Looking at him now, she could sense that his power was not quite the same as it was back then.

Back then he was a high tier bronze ranked demon, just a couple of steps away from being a Demon Lord Level demon, but now, while he was still bronze ranked, she could tell that he seemed to be far weaker.

‘I don’t understand. It’s almost as if his power declined all of a sudden and he is just beginning to regain his lost power….’

Lotus couldn’t have known just how right she was.

As for Kizilkoz, since their fathers were a Demon King and Demon Lord respectively, thus were once quite close friends, she ended up meeting Kizilkoz and her sister when Kizilkoz was just a little child.

While Kokjan, Kizilkoz’s sister was closer to Lotus’s age, Kizilkoz left an undeniable impression on Lotus as an adorable child.

Since the mana signature of demons does not change, Lotus could immediately tell that this fifteen year old, red haired eagle demon was the very same adorable child she met back then.

‘Kizilkoz…What is she doing here? Doesn’t she remember me? Granted, it has been very long time…’

Seeing that Kizilkoz did not even look at her, Lotus felt a little depressed. Even the one demon she knew personally and grew fond of was not considering Lotus worth her time.

‘Did he conquer them? Is that why they are here? There are so many types of demons here….lizard type, beetle type, fox and wolf types, felines…and even Onis! He is leading so many demons who all have different goals….and he is doing a great job of it! He may strike fear into my heart, but there is one thing I must know…’

Not noticing that Ren was a little sleepy as he was cooking, Lotus ended up asking him.

“Ren Karatengu, answer me, what are demons to you?”

She wanted to know what exactly made him different from her, why he succeeded so greatly while she failed so miserably.

What was his secret to ruling?

With a yawn, Ren answered.

“Pieces of Meat”

‘What did he just say?!’ Lotus made sure that her ears were not malfunctioning. He couldn’t possibly mean….

It can’t be….

“Are you referring to…?” Lotus wanted to make sure he knew what her question was; it could have been a simple slip of the tongue, after all.

“Yes, I am referring to that.”

All her doubts were erased as she realized he meant exactly what he said.

“The meat has to be sliced up and then made soft by pounding it with hammer until it becomes tender, only then you can work with it!”

He proceeded to take a hammer in his hand and started to pound the meat with all his might.

As she saw the meat being grinded into ground beef, Lotus couldn’t help but imagine him doing the very same thing to his enemies.

‘Is he telling me that he molds the ones that don’t obey him into the shape he desires by overwhelming force? It seems like a wise tactic but….’

She imagined Ren in the battlefield, slicing through his enemies as though they were nothing more than walking pieces of meat.

‘Don’t tell me…in his eyes we are just meat for him to slice and grind?!’

Her assessment of Ren Karatengu was getting more and more horrifying by the second.

While she could sense the relative strength of everyone around her, the same could not be said for Ren Karatengu.

For some strange reason, she could not sense his mana or his level of strength. If she couldn’t see or hear him, she would have thought that he was not even inside the room.

“He is not weak…He definitely is a demon as strong if not stronger than a Demon Lord….But I can’t sense his power. I feel nothing from him. Does that mean….he is so far above me in terms of strength that I am a mere insect underneath him, unable to sense his true power?!”

Lotus couldn’t have known just how wrong her assessment was.

Ren, when not using the skill of Absorption, was actually the weakest one inside the room and maybe the weakest person in the Tengu clan, and his mana level was so ridiculously low to the point that it was unsensable; just like how one is unable to discern the miniscule mana plants radiate.

As she saw Ren take dough and mold it into shape, Lotus thought.

‘So this is his approach to ruling. The reason he is cooking right before me is to make me understand the way he operates. First he breaks his enemies until they become as malleable as dough and then, when they are completely broken, does he use them for his purposes. That must be it.’

What she wouldn’t guess even in her wildest dreams was that Ren did not hear her question right. As sleepy as he was, the only thing he ended up hearing was a question about what something was. He assumed she was asking what was the secret ingredient, which he told her were pieces of meat. Ren even went as far as to tell her the recipe.

Seeing that he indeed was a superior ruler, Lotus had to make her resolve.

‘I am scared, more scared than I ever was….so this is what it means to look death in the eye. But, for the sake of my clan, I, Lotus Lua Draco, will not falter….’

As she saw Ren roasting beef on a skillet, Lotus felt a shiver pass through her wings, down her spine, all the way to the tip of her scaly tail.

“…If I survive this”

From the way things were going, Lotus knew she was at his mercy, and if he wanted to, he could end her and her clan in an instant.