Demon Qual and Sukuna silently flew through the air.
With their speed, it would take them about three hours to return to the city.
As they were flying, a large figure suddenly rose up from the forest.
It was a medium-sized, green-colored dragon.
With its mouth wide open, it rushed toward them at an incredible speed.
Qual narrowed his eyes. Due to the dragon's strong magic defense, spells like Zoltraak, which were highly effective against mages, became useless.
That is why warriors were the best counter against such highly magic-resistant beings.
Demon Qual stopped. He saw the dragon rushing toward Sukuna and was about to use his magic when suddenly, the green dragon was split in two.
Its internal organs spilled out as the two halves of its body fell toward the ground.
It happened so fast...
...he could hardly react.
All he sensed was an invisible, sharp wave of mana that suddenly rushed out from Sukuna and bisected the dragon.
And most of all...
'It bypassed the dragon's magic defense?'
Demon Qual silently stared at the falling dragon.
"How powerful....."
he muttered in a low tone, turning his gaze to look at Sukuna, who didn't even show a single reaction throughout the process.
'He was holding back when he fought me.....'
Touching his beard with interest, he leaned forward and quickly followed behind Sukuna.
After three hours of travel, they finally returned to Dawn City.
Qual silently observed the calm reactions of the humans while following Sukuna.
'I don't sense any rejection from them... if anything, I feel goodwill?.... how peculiar... humans having goodwill for demons?'
It must be because of Sukuna's acting.
'Merely a few years of peace were enough for them to forget their hatred.....'
Qual turned his head away from the humans, who had become disconnected from the way of the world due to Sukuna's protection.
Sukuna and Qual entered the Dawn Institute of Magic, directly making their way toward the top floor.
Clank
With a sudden sound, Sukuna pushed open the wooden door and entered, with Qual following behind.
Inside, he saw the familiar faces of Demon Solitar, who was reading a magic book, and Linie, who was training the newcomer he had picked up earlier.
"You are back."
Solitar silently closed the book in her hand, placed it to the side, and jumped up from the chair.
Standing on the floor, she thought about how a human woman would greet her love after he returned from work.
Then, her calm face suddenly changed, replaced by a loving smile as she ran toward Sukuna and hugged him tightly while saying,
"I missed you, Sukuna."
Sukuna hugged her back and said with a genuine smile on his face,
"Yes, I missed you too."
The two silently hugged each other, looking like a lovey-dovey couple.
Looking at the lovely scene,
Demon Qual's brain stopped working for a moment.
He couldn't understand what these two demons were trying to accomplish.
'Why... are they acting like humans?'
This was, without a doubt, the strangest thing he had seen since the time of his birth.
Which, just so you know, happened a few centuries ago.
Even after contemplating for a good few minutes, he still couldn't understand their intention.
So, he decided to ask instead.
"What are you two doing?"
Sukuna and Solitar paused, then turned their heads toward him at the same time.
Demon Solitar was the first one to say something.
"Hello, Qual."
"Hello, Solitar."
The two old-timers greeted each other before Solitar explained,
"We are doing an experiment to understand human emotions..."
"To learn about sympathy, love, and other emotions common to humans by acting like them...."
Solitar explained, with a deep look in her eyes.
Demon Qual silently listened to her before thinking for a moment and saying,
"It is a meaningless endeavour."
'Why does this line sound so familiar?' Sukuna thought in his mind.
It was as if every demon liked to use the exact same line.
Unlike the newborn Linie, Demon Qual understood much more with his centuries of experience.
A demon understanding human emotions?
This wasn't even a fantasy, but simply something that couldn't even be imagined.
It was an utter waste of time and effort.
Demon Qual silently shook his head and looked at the various magic books on the shelves.
Solitar also didn't bother to elaborate, since Qual was different from Linie.
Sukuna said to Qual, who was staring at the magic books,
"You can read anything you wish here, but before that, you will have to help me with an ongoing project."
"A project? Are you working on something?"
Demon Qual's interest was piqued.
Now this was much more interesting than some idiotic plan of helping demons understand human emotions.
"I'll take you to see it in a moment... but before that, you brat, come here," Sukuna said while pointing at the demon girl beside Linie.
The newborn demon silently followed his command and came before him.
"What's your name?" Sukuna asked in a plain tone.
"Verwandt," she replied in a plain tone.
"Have you created your magic?"
"Yes, it's called Mundtot."
Damn German names.
Before Sukuna could ask what it did, Solitar suddenly interjected.
"Her magic affects the mind; it reminds me of Grausam's illusion."
"Oh?"
Sukuna slightly narrowed his eyes.
He was not a fan of magic spells that affected the mind, simply because he didn't have a foolproof counter against them.
But with Verwandt's magic, he would be able to understand how magic affects the mind and then create a defense against it.
Demons were indeed a very miraculous race; even a newborn like Verwandt could somehow grasp her original magic in such a short time, even when it touched on delicate topics like the mind.
Mundtot is a mind-type magic that has the ability to enhance the emotion one is feeling.
Meaning, if you were feeling a little sad about losing that game of rock-paper-scissors before, then under Mundtot's effect, you would now become chronically depressed over the loss.
Of course, Verwandt wasn't able to use it to that level yet, since she was a newborn demon and lacked the experience and mana to accomplish it.
Nevertheless, it was certainly a very intriguing magic.
It can enhance one's emotions but cannot make them feel something out of nowhere.
Sukuna learned it, then took the demons with him to the docks.
There, they arrived before the large battleship, adorned with magic patterns.
Demon Qual stared at the construction with narrowed eyes.
He couldn't understand the magic patterns, as he was seeing them for the first time.
But with his extremely high mana affinity and intellect, he could roughly understand their use.
Unable to hold himself back, he clenched his fists and flew toward the top of the ship.
Sukuna and the other demons also followed him.
On the deck, there were a few professors from the Dawn Institute of Magic setting up mana crystals.
"Such a large-scale mana container... and this magic conductivity..." Qual started muttering in a mesmerized tone, carefully sensing every corner of the ship.
The professors looked at Qual in confusion before seeing their Lord suddenly arrive and quickly greeted him.
Sukuna gave them a nod, then started introducing everything to his new demon companions.
Demon Qual and Verwandt listened in silence.
After showing them the whole ship, Qual suddenly opened his mouth and said,
"It is a marvelous feat of mana... but I believe it's destruction capabilities can be further enhanced....."
"Oh?" Sukuna turned to him.
Demon Qual didn't hesitate and started sharing his own ideas.
Listening to his words, Sukuna's eyes glowed for a moment before calming down.
Indeed, any demon who had lived for centuries was a magic genius.
The ideas Demon Qual shared were those he had come up with after witnessing his prized magic, Zoltraak, being blocked by Dawn City's magic shield.
In such a short time, Qual had already thought of ideas to improve his magic, giving it the ability to bypass the hexagonal magic shield made by Solitar with a few years of effort.
Without hesitation, Sukuna agreed with Qual's proposal and handed him the task of improving his warship's attack capabilities.
Of course, before he could begin, Qual would have to learn about magic patterns.
Which shouldn't take long for a demon of his caliber.
As for Verwandt, she was assigned to work as Qual's assistant.
It would be a great learning experience for the newborn demon.
And with that,
Months passed by.
----
One day.
Sukuna received an unexpected surprise.
"A letter? For me?"
"Yes, Lord. An owl dropped it off near the city gate before flying away."
'Is my Hogwarts letter finally here?' Sukuna thought with a smile, and took the letter.
And almost instantly, his gaze was fixed on the sender's name.
From Schlacht the Omniscient to Demon Sage of Severance, Sukuna.
With narrowed eyes, he told the guards to retreat and sat down on his chair before opening it up and looking inside.
[By the time you receive this, I would have passed away.]
"...."
Ok.
Moving on.
[... at the cost of three demon sages and myself, we would succeed in killing the Hero of the South.....]
Hero of the South.
Killed by the coalition of several Demon Sages of Destruction.
Looking at the letter carrying the familiar piece of news, Sukuna fell into silence.
After a moment, he let out a sigh, lamenting the death of a strong warrior.
He would have liked to fight him again; alas, that was no longer an option.
Still, this was an outcome he wanted, so he wasn't too sad.
'Now both the seers are gone.'
Sukuna thought and read on.
[Although I am a demon and him a human, our goals were the same...]
[To ensure the survival of our race.]
Sukuna read in silence.
[And the reason for me writing this letter to you is the same.]
[Sukuna, you possess a power or artifact which allows you to be invisible to our future sights...]
[If I had more time, then I would have talked to you in person.]
[But since I do not have that luxury, I can only use this letter to convey some key information to you...]
Following that, specific places with dates and times were mentioned.
Sukuna stared at them with interest.
[These are the places where young demons will be born in the upcoming century before being helplessly killed by humans shortly after.]
They were unlucky little ones who would be spawn-killed in the future.
[I understand that their life and death are not of your concern.]
That is how every demon thinks.
They don't have any feeling of kinship; even if another demon died right before them, they would not care.
[So I leave these future insights to you in exchange for your trouble...]
Afterward, several key moments of the future were written below.
Most of which Sukuna already knew, like the death of the Demon King by Himmel and his party, the death date of Hero Himmel, and about Demon Sage Macht, who would be killed by Frieren...
As Sukuna kept reading, his gaze suddenly paused on a particular line.
[53 years after Hero Himmel's death, Saint of the End, Great Demon Tot, will end 3/4ths of the world's population using her curse magic, killing Warrior Stark of Frieren's party before dying at Great Mage Fern's hands....]
Great Demon Tot.
Saint of the End.
Will end 3/4th of the world.
---------
Note: Still alive!