A few minutes after the hectic battle with the marionette, Damien awoke on the roof of the skyscraper. It was still morning. He winced at the pain in his right arm, and began sitting up when a voice entered his mind.

‘Something is off…’ Shaitan began speaking, ‘The total amount of demonic presences I sense have just increased by one. Aside from us, I now sense a total of 79 presences.’

“What…? Did another demon just come here from Hell?” Damien asked, strangely looking hopeful.

‘No. No other demons can travel across realms during the Demon King’s ceremony after the initial 100 candidates have made it to the Realm of the Mortals. The only possibilities are that a demon had just gone out of hiding its presence, or that a demon that has recently been defeated has just revived.’

“...”

‘...’

The duo both had the same thoughts. It could only have been one demon. The Marionette.

“FUUUUUUUUUUUCK!” Damien suddenly shouted, his scream echoing across the sky from atop the skyscraper.

“Did you know, Shaitan? I typically don’t enjoy fighting art obsessed lunatics on my mornings. What the hell is up with that psycho?! How is he still alive?!”

‘Well, he IS one of the top competitors that I had warned you about. I surmise that he had used an unique ability that I was not aware of. The new presence is quite the distance away from us.’

“Still, the fight with the vampire lord Rose wasn’t nearly as difficult as this, even if he is one of the noteworthy demons.”

‘It is because of our elevation. The sunlight here is stronger than it had been at the greenhouse with its artificial sunlight, so I was not able to assist you as well as I could have. In addition, I have already told you that the marionette and I are a bad matchup. We would have to completely destroy his body into pieces in order to defeat him.’

“Hah…” Damien sighed in defeat.

Later into the same day, other demons would be having their own battles, and doing things of their own.

…

A figure that looked like a human had just had its heart impaled by the sword of another demon. However, it did not fall, on the contrary, it simply pulled the sword out of its chest, and claimed the sword as its own.

The humanly figure moved with a new sword in hand, and similarly impaled the heart of its demonic attacker with it. The attacking demon fell to the ground, dead.

The survivor slightly curved its lips into a menacing grin. It was a zombie.

...

Meanwhile, a demon had been ambushed and surrounded by a group of five other demons. This demon had a black tail and scales with piercing red eyes. It was a dragon.

The dragon lifted up the one assaulting it directly from behind by its feet with its tail, and easily swung the giant body around in a full circle, blowing away its 4 other attackers.

The one being swung around and was being used as a meat bludgeon was a 2 meter giant cyclops.

The dragon made quick work of its attackers.

Shortly afterwards, the same dragon could be seen musing while sitting atop a pile of 5 corpses.

…

Somewhere in a small and dark room, another figure that appeared human could be seen horrifically driving a knife into itself, and dragging the knife across its body. However, no matter how much it cut into itself, it simply would not bleed. It was, in fact, not human at all.

The blade seemed to carve designs onto the body of its wielder.

“Ahhhh... I will make myself beautiful once more.” The figure simply said, before laughing hysterically.

…

A headless figure in armor, wielding a scythe, had just decapitated another demon. It picked up the freshly decapitated head, placing it over its own headless body.

“This isn’t my head.” it said, before tossing the head to the side.

“I wonder, how many more demons will I have to kill to find my head?” it spoke while stalking off solemnly.

…

Elsewhere, a small red demon was agilely fleeing from a large beast that looked like a mix between a human and bull in a forest. The pursuing demon was a Minotaur.

It gave chase, following the small red demon when suddenly, there was no ground beneath its feet.

It had fallen into a pitfall.

“Eheheheh…” the small red demon laughed incessantly while picking up a crude, hidden spear from behind a tree.

…

72 demons remain.