Supreme Monarch

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The sound of the communication spell was like the ringing of a bell or a chime in his ears, and Tyler had to accept the request for it to stop. There was only one person that would contact him and he knew exactly who it was. Tyler accepted the communication request just by thinking about it and a familiar voice entered his mind.

"Lord Ty."

"Yes"

"There's a problem, we found something strange at one of the safe zones."

"What is it?"

"I believe it to be the corpses of some of the scouts that may have resided here."

"Corpses? Did you kill them?"

"No sir, it looks like they might've been dead for a while now but the cold weather preserves the Corpses."

"I see, can you tell what killed them."

"No sir, we didn't find any signs of struggle when inspecting the bodies."

"I see, can you tell what family they belonged to?"

"No sir, but there's a problem."

"A problem?"

"Yes sir, we found the bodies inside the safe zone."

"Huh..." Tyler wasn't entirely sure what he meant by safe zone, he was sure he had heard the word before but he didn't know why it would be a problem. Still, he wouldn't let the others know he was clueless.

"Mmm... Alright, bring the bodies back for inspection." He hoped perhaps if Albert studies the body, he would reveal more information to him and maybe he could even identify them. "As you wish." Jarret's response was immediate, almost as if he was expecting this.

They had already finished more than 70% of their mission so it was logical to call them back when something so unexpected happens. The spell ended with that and Tyler turned his attention back to the girls. Even though they couldn't hear the message, they had been strangely aware of the fact that he was communicating with someone.

Before that though, Tyler turned to look at Albert and spoke softly. "Jarret's team will be returning soon, have someone watch out for them and inform me when they reach the barrier."

"Yes, my Lord."

"Also take some precautions in case they were followed."

"As you wish."

With that Albert left the office to relay his orders and Tyler turned his attention back to the girls. Liz understood his intentions and spoke first. "Um, when we first left the family, we had aimed to seek the aid of the Daki tripe, but, we've been talking about it, and we... Mmm, we were, err..." She was clearly embarrassed as she spoke and she played with her fingers as she stared at the ground.

Rain felt the same but she was able to get herself together a lot easier than Liz and spoke first. "We had intended to spend the rest of our lives in hiding but we wanted to ask you to— err... If you can possibly take us under you as well, we are both relatively strong and we won't be a burden to you I swear." It was obvious she and Liz had talked about this with Erin.

The Daki tribe was the strongest settlement of freemen on the entire continent. They usually kept to themselves and had a reputation of accepting only the strong into their midst after putting them through a deadly trial for their amusement.

There wasn't really much known about them as the top families never bothered about them, they normally considered them a minor hindrance. Moreover the Daki tribe were located in the eastern end of the continent. They reside in the hills closest to the Scarlet seas. This wasn't a land desired by any of the demon lords as it was considered and called the barren hills, the tribe consisted of only a few members so none of the nobles considered them a threat and they just ignored them.

Even though they consisted of only the strong, they were still only consistent with subsidiary races that were still considered inferior to a demon noble. Rain wasn't confident they could withstand the wrath of one of the Great Five if they were ever to find out the girls were taken in by the tribe, it had been their only option at the time but, from what she had heard from Liz and Erin, from the fight they had some minutes ago and the mere fact he had control over this castle instilled a different hope within her.

A behemoth was comparable to a lone demon lord and Rain believes he knew the secrets of the castle and would benefit tremendously from it, it wasn't hard to see the storm he would cause throughout the continent and she didn't know if he had a plan to handle it, but the addition of two Tier 6 fighters that he could trust should only help him. If he wasn't interested in them or had no use for them besides the information he wanted, they would surely be cast out at a later date so they had agreed on becoming one of these behemoths' underlings.

He had gone out of his way to save a simple ogre settlement and even allowed them access to such a valuable place, they felt that being under him would be better than the Alcars. Compared to a group of freemen a single behemoth was enough to cause the other demon lords to hesitate, moreover, Tyler had already promised to help Liz out before.

Tyler's face was visibly plastered with hesitance and Rain, seeing this hurriedly added. "We are also prepared to use a demon's pact and even though I'm not a demon myself, I can also be contracted as long as I provide a little of my blood."

Tyler didn't understand what she meant for a minute, the word pact was obvious, she was talking about some kind of contract that would put him at ease but he wasn't sure what it was. He thought about it for a while and started to think back to what he heard in the human continent, there was a spell that could place a person under the absolute control of another which was similar to a contract, a slave contract.

Seeing him try to remember something Liz chimed in to explain, she thought perhaps he hadn't used the skill before. It wasn't unusual, even though it was a skill that all demons could use unless they had miraculously activated it at some point in time, they wouldn't even know it existed as the nobles took great care to prevent the knowledge of the skill from being wild spread. It was a skill that needed to be taught in other to unlock it and it could not be taught to other races and subsidiary races.

She knew most behemoths wouldn't know about that much about the spell and even if they had somehow unlocked it, they wouldn't understand everything about it, as for why Tyler didn't know it, she thought he was probably having some trouble with his memories, most likely the reason why he was still getting stronger as evident by his battle with Rain.

She also wondered why he only seemed to use low-tier spells, and how he's able to get them all to over tier so drastically. She decided not to focus too much on those issues and just took her time in explaining everything in detail about what a demon's pact was.

Basically, a demon's pact was a racial skill every demon was born with. When activated, the skill would be reflected in the eyes of the demon casting it, causing their eyes to glow in a red hue and an intricate magic circle of an unknown degree would be constructed in them. It was an easy process that would bind the casters' words to the person they stared at when the magic circle was fully constructed causing them to fall under the control of the deal that was just agreed upon by the intended target.

When a pact was completed it would only be broken when the souls of either party left this plane. This was a spell that was mostly used during the rule of the last demon king and had last been used more than Eight hundred years ago when the Great Five were solidifying their dominance over the continent. Demon nobles could naturally assert dominance over weaker demons and other subsidiary races so the spell was only used between parties of similar strengths and had no blood ties.

In a way, it was similar to a slave contract only one had more freedom and the consent of both parties. The slave contract forces dominance onto a target against their will, as long as their will had been broken, while using a demon's pact required the willingness of both parties, and apart from enforcing the deal of the contract, the only other effect was to prevent lies and deception, a demons specialty, well, most demons. The pact could not force a party to obey another against their will unless it was within the agreed deal. It would only prevent any form of deceit that interferes with the deal, which could lead to the death of the one to breach the contract.

Hearing her explanation, Tyler understood why the nobles wanted to control the spread of such a dangerous skill, there was no room for error, any mistake when making a contract would bind you to that flawed deal for life. He could imagine the horror that could cause and he could see some despicable perverts deceiving naive girls to agree to a weird contract.

It was a good thing the skill had to be taught in order to learn it as it prevented it from spreading too quickly. Thinking about this he suddenly remembered something, there was something oddly familiar about Liz's description about the effect the skill had on the eyes. Didn't he see Albert's eyes glow red at their first meeting, the thing had surprised him and he felt like he was trying to find out if he was human so he had hurriedly accepted his request to save Erin.

'Wait, does that mean I unknowingly participated in a demon's pact? This shit is too scary.' It was fortunate he had heard about this now and hadn't agreed to any strange deals, the thought alone was terrifying and Tyler was glad he had such masterful control over his body to be able to maintain his poker face yet again. With this, his worries of roaming the demon continent in ignorance were reignited.

'Does this mean I need to accept their request, the main issue is their ever-growing expectations of me, I might collapse from the pressure one day. But... the fact still remains that they are right, with two Tier 6 mages by my side with the common sense of demons, it would make things somewhat easier for me. Sigh... thinking like this, does that mean I'm considering staying here for good? No, they want protection I can just stay until I figure out a way for that without me putting myself in danger. To be honest it doesn't feel like I have many options or choices, to begin with.'

Tyler's mind was a sea of chaos but he soon resigned himself to his situation. There was nothing to really lose from this. The fact of the matter was, they could help him protect the magic library even if they had no idea what they were protecting.

As long as they proved useful, there was no harm in keeping them around, after all, thanks to the bout with Rain, he was now fully confident in his strength. At the very least he was way stronger than everyone within this castle.

"Hmm... Alright then, I'll accept your loyalty to me and like I promised last time I'll help you both improve your strength."