184 Chapter 184: A new family 1

In the darkness of the night, under the watchful eyes of the ever bright moon, a figure appeared above what was left of the Cathedral of the holy church. His face looked pale and his body weak, it was obvious he had sustained injuries that would take time to him. But for now, he could only put up a domineering appearance in a bid to hide his weakness.

Derik could feel a sharp pain piercing into his tainted soul, his eyes were a bit sunken and his body fat seemed to have reduced drastically. His condition was worse than anyone could expect, perhaps even a year of rest will not allow him to return to his peak condition again, take less of advancing in the realm.

"Damn it… Things turned out to be harder than I thought..." Derik muttered with a bitter smile on his face.

"You're the one who rushed in headfirst… If you waited a few more years and cultivated diligently before you made a move against Gyro, You may have gained the strength to even annihilate the forces of the various kingdoms that planned to steal the loot…" Demos replied.

"Haha… that would have been fun… but you know I was running out of time, I had to act fast" Derik quickly defended himself.

"And now you will spend that same amount of time you would have used to push yourself into the gold realm to recover… mortals… You all lack patience" Demos retorted

"That's right! We lack patience because we cannot escape time. Our time is limited…" Derik sighed.

"Yea… yea… Anyway, why did you come back here…" Demos asked

"When we attacked the cathedral, I could sense some sort of familiar aura, identical to mine but a bit weaker" Derik's voice lowered as he spoke.

"What do you think is down there?" Demos asked casually. It was obvious he was not interested in what Derik felt, since the presence is weaker than Derik's, then there is no reason for a higher being like himself to bother about it.

"Every kingdom has dark mages of various kinds… even if they are rare, it's not difficult to spot at least five, even in Cato, where I spent half a decade… I only left the crib only a few times yet I spotted over three of them… But in Gyro, Kira is the only one in possession of a variant of dark magic, something feels off about it" Derik said.

"…." Demos suddenly got quiet. This aroused Derik's suspicion even more.

"Demos… what are you not telling me" Derik was already used to Demos' unique character, so it was quite easy for him to realize that Demos was hiding something.

"Well, you know I'm not allowed to disclose somethings, even to you, my host… If these laws did not exist, all guardian spirit hosts will be aware of the situation across the world without lifting a finger…" Demos reluctantly explained why he's yet to speak on the issue.

"I'm about to find out… Can't I get some hints?" Derik said with a weird smile on his face.

Demos only grunted in response. For a reason, Derik felt like the death guardian spirit could see his facial expression so he stopped making faces. Demos intended to play deaf on this issue but under Derik's constant nagging, his strong will broke down, leaving the angel of death with no choice but to speak.

"Alright! Alright!! I wish Gyro can see it's so called guardian behaving like a twelve-year-old!" Demos snorted disdainfully.

"Unfortunately for you, that will never happen… Now tell me what I want to know" Derik grinned childishly as he spoke.

"Get moving… I will explain on the way" Demos responded after a few seconds of silence.

...........................…..

Derik's body flashed and in just a second he was standing on a broken pillar of the cathedral. His eyes narrowed as he considered a few things which made him feel quite restless. At this very moment, he was assaulted by a familiar feeling from all over the cathedral, no definite place or source, in particular, this made it difficult for him to pinpoint the source. His eyes narrowed and his hands coiled up into a fist and he bit his lower lip in anger! The smile on his face has already faded and his eyes revealed his murderous intentions!

Derik was already familiar with this feeling. This is the way he felt when someone who possessed any sort of magic related to 'evil', it showed the relation between his death magic and other forms of these evil magic. The fact he could sense this here and now simply meant that people with his form of magic were brought here, to the cathedral! And this happened recently if not the aura wouldn't be so strong.

His dark heart felt heavy as he considered the possibility that these people could have been crushed under the cathedral when it fell. He instantly regretted not forgoing everything and rushing to their aid the moment they broke the barrier of the cathedral. If he did these people may still be alive.

"Don't despair child… they are not yet dead… and they weren't brought here recently, they have always been here… In exchange for some amount of resources from the church, the former king Robert agreed to provide them with children possessing an affinity to evil magic… taking them away even before they are able to learn the basics…" Demos explained calmly.

"What do you mean? Why wasn't I taken? Why wasn't Kira taken?" Derik refused to believe that someone could commit such a crime against the people by stealing away young innocent kids from their families and giving them over to the holy church just because they possessed an affinity to dark magic

"It's your choice to believe my words or not… You were spared this fate due to sheer luck… By the time the death magic awakened in you, you have already made a name for yourself throughout Gyro, especially in Briton… The archer who killed a level five ogre, with his bare hands, even I was fascinated by your story… with such popularity coupled with the protection of the Lockwood family from the background… The church couldn't make a move against you without a legit reason… As for Kira, he was born into a noble family, a level two noble family at that. Naturally, they had powerful friends so they could easily bargain with the holy church and keep their child… at a heavy price for sure" Demos explained.

"I… I see…" Derik was lost in thoughts so he replied absentmindedly.

With clutched fists and gritting teeth, Derik began to think that he let the former king, Robert die too easily. Now he finally realized how the former king managed to gather enough resources to push someone with zero talent like Anna Gyro to the silver realm. Derik's heart ached badly as he thought about it!

If these resources were used to properly equip the military force of Gyro, he probably would have been killed as soon as he returned to Gyro.

How can a mere adventurers association in a kingdom face the Kingdoms military force for hours and not fall into a disadvantaged position! This only proved that the adventurers association managed by Gerald Gyro had members more properly equipped than the military itself.

The thought of it alone made Derik feel disgusted. He wished he could kill these people over and over again! Derik took a deep breath and relaxed a bit, cooling his nerves, his claws dug deep into his palm and it was already covered in black blood.

"Are these people, kids still alive…" Derik composed himself before he spoke.

"This I'm not allowed to say like I said we guardian spirits are not allowed to speak about somethings to our hosts… All I can say is this… The holy church always sent them to a place where all sinners belonged when they are done with their… tests…" Demos said with hints of mischief in his voice.

Derik was stunned by his words at first but then he quickly understood Demos' intentions. Even if he couldn't give him the information the normal way, he could always give him hints.

"Thanks!" Derik muttered and he quickly jumped down the pillar and quickly released his abundant death aura which spread like a plague, slowly corroding all the debris around. Under the effect of Derik's death aura which was like a raging sea, the debris was slowly turned to dust, leaving nothing remaining, including the bodies of the members of the church that died in here.

"The church sent them to a place where all sinners belong… the only place I know is the underworld… In this case, it should be under the church!" Derik said with a vicious grin and with a slight wave of his hand, a massive gust of wind exploded, pushing away all the dust.

His eyes were like daggers, able to pierce through the ground itself as he scanned the surroundings carefully while walking around. Soon a bone-chilling smile appeared on his face when he saw something like a pit, the door might have been corroded by his death aura as well.

"An underground Chamber? The holy church is really something" Derik couldn't help but comment.

He hastily flew into the hole at a terrifying speed, caring little of what could be hiding within. While he dived deeper into the whole, he noticed a strange formation along the walls of the tunnel, as he lacked profound knowledge in a lot of things, especially since he left Gyro early, he couldn't tell what the formation was made to do but he could slightly guess that it was most likely the reason why he couldn't feel the aura of these people normally. Even though he and Cyrus had great life force sensory abilities that could cover the Gyro kingdom as a whole, they still weren't able to notice these people. He suspected the cathedral also possessed a similar formation but it was damaged during the battle, allowing Derik to notice something was wrong here.

"Sure enough, the background of the holy church is something kingdoms of this continent can never match up to" Derik said bitterly