The news shocked the two parties, the monster and the demon, they already to some extent understood that there was a unique relation between the demon king and the Shard, but never did they saw the demon king killing the two summoned heroes coming with the help of the black dragon .
After all the heroes too had a unique connection with the Shard, so what was going on here, the great news about the summoned heroes being two hadn't even settled in both of their minds, before hearing that they were both killed in a single night .
The demon emperor parted ways with the monster Devo after agreeing on the time of their next meeting and he went directly to one of the demon king army strongholds he still have knowledge of, trying to gain any amount of information from there .
The demon emperor was noticed and was greeted by all the officers in the stronghold, he was told that the demon king told them that i perished together with the other high ranking members in try to tame that black dragon and that out of respect to our sacrifice he used his full power and battled the black dragon for 4 days until he was finally able to tame it .
But that information didn't interest the demon emperor, he asked directly about how the demon king was doing and then asked how was did he kill the two heroes, not bother to explain how was he even alive or why was he asking, the officers in the stronghold shock their heads and said that they didn't have a clue, they were surprised like everyone else by the sudden news, they said that they weren't even notified of a battle occuring, much less a decisive battle between the demon king and the heroes .
What followed their answers was a one side massacre, leaving no one alive in the stronghold and then he burnt down the place and began to move towards the kingdom that summoned the two heroes, but found that the whole kingdom capital was actually slaughtered and destroyed, he tried to gather the little bits of information he could as he began to head to the Mana Stone mine .
The information he got was that the demon king destroyed the Kingdom of Brosia and as a result the two heroes went to his castle for retribution, but they ended up falling into a trap that had already been set by the demon king, resulting in their death .
The demon emperor felt something was completely wrong with this turn of events, even with a trap set beforehand, the fall of two heroes that have always been much stronger than the demon king, wasn't something normal at all, even with the Shard deciding not to make a move, this just don't make any sense .
Was the information given to us by the first demon who came here were false, were the heroes weren't summoned to deal with that demon king .
The demon emperor decided to be more cautious while going any further, he came to augment the strength of the two heroes and to gather more useful information on the two of them, but now that wasn't possible anymore, so he will just have to improvis, the idea of returning back to the Real World was in his mind, but he still decided to make the most use of this trip .
He first went and collected all the resources close to him, it took him 30 days or so, before he moved to another location, but near the place where no one should be, a beautiful woman had a bitter expression on her face as she opened the door to enter the blacksmith shop of her, that woman will later known as the demon queen .
He first paid that woman no mind and directly entered the mine, just as he entered the mine, he began to feel that the Mana concentration in the mine was getting thinner and weaker in an alarming rate, he braced himself and cautiously began to head deep in the mine .
He saw that the monster race that came with him was siphoning the energy of the Mana Stones in the mine, one after the other and his eyes were beginning to become blood red and his monstrous traits were beginning to surface on his skin, he was going to leave him to do what he want, but seeing that by doing so he might endanger the success of the trip, he called him, but he didn't respond .
He then walked to him and nudged him in the shoulder, but he was unresponsive, he tried to push him away from the Mana ores, but the moment the monster sensed the intent of an attack, he directly countered with a tail attack aimed to kill the attacker, but fortunately their strength were quite close to each other, the demon emperor was able to parry attack and push him to the wall, the monster luckily regained some of his clarity and hurriedly composed himself .
When the demon emperor asked about what exactly was he trying to do, the monster answered that just like him he also had a special talent, he can consume ores and know the history of their formation, his father tasked him with finding how these Mana Stones were formed and he was trying to do so, but then the side effect of the use of that special talent of his kicked in .
His ability required him to be composed and calm as to be able to process most of the information he gain, he normally only affect by the side effects of his talent if he used it for an extended period of time, but this time something was different with these ores, unlike the Mana Stones back in their Homeland, something sinister was behind the formation of these ores, whatever it was, it was able to influence his mind and had him completely lose his sanity and in almost an instant, he lost his mind and kept siphoning the energy of the ores .
The demon emperor asked him to clarify more about the sinister feeling that he felt, the monster answered that he didn't understand it much as well, but said that whatever the thing inside the Mana Stone, it was something quite evil .
The demon emperor then decided to ask the monster about what their actual target in coming to this land was and he already expected not to be answered, but he actually told the demon emperor about his race actual goal for coming here, they were trying to get the Shard, but he didn't elaborate further on what were they going to do with it .
Both decided to leave this mine as it is and began to head out, the monster picked a direction and directly start running in that direction, leaving the demon emperor in the same place contemplating about all the weird things that suddenly began to happen, first was the news about the demon king killing the heroes, then the weird mana stones in this mine and the fact that the monster race was here to get their hands on the Shard, things keep turning more and more chaotic all of sudden .
Then after he came out of the mine, he was suddenly stopped by the female blacksmith from before, she kept sizing him up and down before asking him why did he entered the cave and that it was a very dangerous thing to do, he wasn't interested in chatting with her at first, but when she mentioned something being strange with that cave, he couldn't help but become interested in hearing more about it .
She told him that they keep hearing a loud noises from time to time as if someone was wailing inside the cave, but no one in the near village had enough courage to check the cave, she even asked him if he was able to see anything weird, which he replied to by saying that he didn't witness anything that could be called weird .
She looked at him for a few minutes in silence and just shook her head and left and returned back to her shop, the demon emperor knew that he might have been found out to be lying by that woman, but he was ready to get out of this place .
A month later, he came back once again to check on the state of the cave, this time he accidentally met with the one responsible for the wailing that the villagers described, the actual voice was that of laughing menacingly and the owner of that voice was none other than the demon king who he was very much acquainted with, his eyes were more red than before and his body frame became much larger as well, the green shade on his body had become much thicker than before as well, if he wasn't acquainted with him and his venomous aura, he might have thought him to be a complete different person .
The demon emperor kept his distance so not to be discovered by the demon king, the demon king was pouring his blood on those Mana Stones in front of him, the mystery of what might have been corrupting the Mana Stones or more appropriately to say who, was finally solved, but the demon emperor noted that the blood color of the demon king was different than before, making him becoming even more confused .
The demon king blood was black as ink before, but the guy that was in front of him had dark red blood, as he was wondering about what to do, the demon king finally noticed that someone was trailing him, so he shouted in the direction of the demon emperor and asked him to come out of his hiding, the demon emperor sensing that the black dragon was nowhere to be seen, he came out of his hiding place and directly stood in front of the demon king .
The demon emperor was a bit shocked to be found out even though he took precaution, but his shock only continued to deepened when he heard the voice of the demon king and the words that came out of the demon king mouth .
He was shocked because the demon king spoke in a quite unusual manner, his voice was a lot more pitched than what the demon emperor seemed to remember, his words was a bit sluggish as if he was nothing but a mere corpse, but what really made the demon emperor lost of words, was the fact that the demon king asked him to identify himself, then without even wasting a second, he directly attacked the demon emperor without waiting for him to respond, the attack he used left the demon emperor certain of on thing, the man in front of him wasn't the Demon King .
As it turned out that the attack he used was of some similarity to an attack that the demon emperor witnessed once before, but that discovery in itself was unbelievable, no it shouldn't have been even possible .
That was the second time that the demon emperor crossed path with a Bloodlord and the first time in this land, the first encounter with a Bloodlord was during a conflict back in the Real World, so seeing one here of all places, once again shocked the demon emperor to his core .
He escaped the attack was quite ease, since the Bloodlord was using the body of the demon king, the strength of his attack was quite weak, but just as he planned to counterattack, the demon king suddenly spoke and asked him once more to declare his identity, but another question soon followed this time, asking him about where did he come from .
The demon emperor first tried to play it safe and said that he was a native here, he was confused about all of sort of things that kept on happening in this land .
The demon king stayed silent for a while, then directly told him that he was lying, the demon emperor then remembered the racial trait of the Bloodlord race and hurriedly tried to shield his thoughts from being read by the other party, but it was too late .
The demon king was also confused about the fact that someone in this isolated land, knew of their racial traits, but his confuse didn't continue for long, since he figured out that they were both in the same boat, his opponent too was from the Real World .
Then without saying much, the strange Demon King waved his hand and the Mana Stones began to gather and come together and formed a dark blue golem, one that directly attacked the demon emperor, but he didn't want to kill him, just incapacitates him .
Another mystery was at least solved, the demon emperor finally understood that the imposter demon king left his will in the stones after he refined it, so that he can be able to use it as a weapon if there was a need to, but the golem wasn't much stronger than his maker, so the demon emperor easily dismantled it with his Swordsmanship and great skill in using the tight space of movement in the surrounding to his advantage, but just as he destroyed the first golem, he was met with 10 other golems of varying sizes, all heading in his direction .
He used a clever maneuver to go past them and was able appear directly in front of the instigator and slashed at his head, the head of the demon king was severed, but just as he was beginning to lower his guard, the golems once again appeared behind him and began to feverishly attack him, then as if that wasn't enough shock, the severed head began to assemble itself back on the demon king's body .
Then out of nowhere, a soft feminine gasp of surprise was released after witnessing this weird scene unfolding, it came from none other than the human woman who had a blacksmith near by the cave ،
The demon emperor was surprised to see her here, but was more surprised to hear her confession about knowing that he the hero was lying to her, just to protect her and the other villagers from venturing into the dangerous cave, but she unable to ease her restless heart decided to follow him inside .
He was about to clear the misunderstanding, but a weird thought that suddenly appeared on his mind dissuaded him not to, he just told her to get out of the cave and he will handle everything here and will soon come over too, but the strong-willed woman refused and said that she was more than capable of handling those weak guys, but she was just bluffing, just from the shaking of her shoulders, the demon emperor deemed that he will still have a use for her, so he began to fight with all of his strength while keeping eye on the said woman, she was quite skill with an axe, but her opponents were just many times stronger than her .
After more than 3 to 4 hours in this tight like situation, the woman collapsed and even the demon emperor was beginning to become a bit short of breath, luckily for the demon emperor the only target for the demon king was only him so she was safe from the golems, but not from the collapsing mine, even in this quite dire consequences he continued to be calm and composed, the demon king on the other hand was impatient due to the fact that the refined Mana Stones were becoming less and less due to the actions of the demon emperor .
The Mana Stones were a quite formidable ore, one that can't be easily destroyed by Ruler level powerhouses, not to mention one only close to that level, but the demon emperor strategy was insightful, he kept slashing at the weak points of the golems and once their limbs or heads began to crumple, he will then collect all the Mana Stones dropped and store them in his Spatial rings, rendering the golems to be unable to regenerate and enabling him to finally able to provide results .
One hour later and as the imposter demon king was beginning to release his Blood Link in try of refining more materials to create more golems, his engrossed state made him completely unaware of the fact that all of his sacrificial pawns were slaughtered and the enemy was standing directly behind him, the new plan that the demon emperor have no room in that plan of his, so seeing the Blood Link coming out, he confirmed his conclusion and directly slashed at it .
The moment he destroyed the Blood Link, the demon king issued a scream of agony, then the look in his eyes became blood and he suddenly decided to amass all the energy he could and tried to self destruct, but his reckless last actions, notified the Shard of something disturbing happening here .
So the bloody looking Demon King that was about to blow himself up, was suddenly engulfed in black flames that burned his body to crisp, the flames appeared suddenly and left just as it appeared, but as they were retreating a few sparks of the said flames was suddenly thrown towards the Demon Emperor, he was forced to shed some of his skin in a hurry after understanding how terrifying that heatless black flames was .
He tried to heal the damaged skin, but no matter what method he used the ugly long scar on the side of his face continuing all the way to the left side of his torso was still there, he sighed at how everything had turned out, but soon he discarded those useless thoughts the moment that he felt the mine beginning to shake so strongly, as if it was all set to begin collapsing on itself .
He stretched his hand and held the woman close to him and began to walk in a hurry out of here, he wanted to fly, but the threat of this area being still under the surveillance of the Shard was there, so he sprinted out of the mine and seconds after he escaped, the mine really collapsed on itself and he saw that the monster named Devo suddenly appeared and came to check on him .
The moment he saw the scar, he tensed not because of it being unsightly or anything, but he was more surprised at the fact that the demon emperor had suffered such a big injury, just as he was about to inquire about what had happened, the woman in the demon emperor arms suddenly regained her conscious, he thought that she might be startled due to the unsightly look of the scar, scared even, but she just looked at the scar and covered her mouth and thanked him still believing he was a hero but that what he exactly what he wanted her to believe .
But then she did something weird, she started sobbing then the sobbing soon turned into crying and hid herself in his embrace, the monster was wondering what was going on and what was with the weird expression on the Demon Emperor's face at that time, but even in the awkward atmosphere, the Demon Emperor still motioned to him not to say a word, thinking :
From now on this land will have a hero who is a Demon .