Inside of the dimensional tunnel, the queen who had recomposed herself after having her mana reserves suddenly drop due to the treatment, turned to see her daughters to then say.
"Despite all the preparations, things can always go wrong, so stay close to either me or miss Thea you two, Ferris in case everything goes wrong you know what to do, Naomi don't pay attention to whatever nonsense those old fellows say to provoke you, okay?".
"Mm", the younger Lamia princess seemed unconvinced but she agreed and then looked away, her older sister on the other hand nodded with a serious face.
"Understood mother", said Ferris, the queen then turned to see Daimon, they already had discussed how they will play things depending on the approach that the noble families would take, however most plans never survive through the first contact with the enemy, so she still said.
"I doubt you even need to hear it, but feel free to speak your mind later, we need to make the whole situation look real after all".
Daimon nodded, dealing with Thalia was the priority, the more time they waited the more she'll be prepared to fight against Thea, so he couldn't lose time with the Nagas and their conflicts, the faster they ended with this the better.
A few seconds later the group reached the end of the dimensional tunnel and appeared in a place that reminded Daimon of the Revy family's throne room, the place consisted on a tall single pillar with a row of seats on its top, placed in the center of an amphitheater.
Naturally Daimon's group which included the sole three members of the royal family, appeared on top of said pillar, which of course drew the attention of the other people in the place, the first ones to react were four people who were surrounding the pillar in the center.
"We greet her majesty the queen and the royal family!", they shouted in unison, Daimon could easily see through their level, the four of them were peak middle stage Stellar ranks, apparently just like back at Neptune, high stage Stellars were quite rare and those who had such a status, were given special positions in the kingdom, just like Karaam who was designated as the captain of the border guard.
And similar to him, there was another person who greeted the queen as soon as she appeared, a woman with dark green hair who was kneeling down in front of Mirellia and the others, while being allowed to be in the same area at the top of the pillar, the difference between her and the other four is that she is an early grade high stage Stellar, the captain of the royal guard and Mirellia's spokesperson, Nea.
Daimon and the others took their respective seats, the queen sat at the rightest seat which was of course a throne, then Ferris sat at her right and surprisingly the next one was Daimon, followed by Thea and lastly Naomi, the younger Lamia princess didn't feel excluded even if Daimon was occupying her usual seat, because she got to seat near her idol, Thea, as for the recently added Zia, she stood behind of Daimon at the left, very much to the undead head maid's envy, luckily she was assigned an important role by Daimon, which improved her mood.
The queen nodded at Nea who stood up and gazed at all the ones attending the meeting to then exclaim.
"Everyone, pay your respects to the royal family and our honorable guests from outside of Draim!".
Only then, the many leaders of the noble families as well as their accompanying guards bowed towards the queen to then introduce themselves.
Mirellia had already told Daimon about the hierarchy in the Meliun kingdom, for the Lamia race, besides the royal family which has never changed, there are three major noble families with their respective representatives who hold the title of Duchesses.
The three major families consist of, the Gramy family from which Nea comes, their representative is an old woman with light green hair who resembled Nea quite a bit, the Zullie family whose representative is a young-looking slender woman with short brown hair and lastly, the Allmere family whose representative is a dark blue haired woman in her thirties.
They represented all the other nobles of the Meliun kingdom, not only due to their high status as they descend from the Lamias who worked with the first ancestor, but because all the other noble families are somewhat related to them, as the queen stated, Lamias can produce offspring just by using blood, it can be their own or from other Lamias, the three major families had shared their blood with other outstanding Lamias and that's how most of the noble families were born.
After them, it was the turn for the Naga kings and queen, the Nascenti family represented by the duke of which Daimon had already heard about before, was the first one, a man with gray hair and dark green eyes, the Nascenti family was in a unique situation as their previous king died in battle, so his uncle the duke Nascenti took control of the clan as a temporary regent while the daughter of the previous king grows enough to inherit the throne.
Then we have the Valiun family, whose king is a bearded bulky man with black hair and brown eyes, then we have the Yillian family, the third king was a middle-aged man with red hair and eyes of a similar color.
And lastly the Mein family, represented by the sole female Naga queen, she had honey blond hair and dark brown eyes, she also had the less noble families sitting behind of her, and unlike the other three kings and their subordinates who shared quite similar characteristics like hair color, eye color and skin tone, the ones behind the Mein Naga queen looked rather diverse, different hair colors and even some scales of different colors.
'Despite claiming they seek to produce a stronger race by uniting with the Lamia race, they aren't really welcoming of the mixed results but want those whose Naga lineage end up in the dominant side, so their objective is something else', concluded Daimon, just by observing how "poor" the Grym Queen's entourage looked when compared with the three kings.
Besides that, another thing that was painfully obvious was the hateful gazes on the eyes of practically all the male heirs of the noble Naga families towards Daimon, the same applied from the few male hybrid Lamia and Naga guys mixed within the Lamia nobility but that was to be expected, since the rumors would mean that their dreamed lovers, in other words the Lamia princesses were being taken away by an outsider.
Also, it didn't escape his eyes, that the adult Naga nobles were paying special attention to the queen's legs, contrary to what one would expect there was actually... discomfort behind their eyes, as for the kings they were more skilled to conceal their inner thoughts, but they still couldn't hide the interest they had in Mirellia.
Leaving that aside after the greetings that also served as introductions, the nobles remained silent hoping for Mirellia to start the conversation, unfortunately for them, the queen elegantly sat on her throne with a soft smile on her face.
This continued for almost a whole minute until the young heirs of the noble families, couldn't stand the sight of Ferris stealing some gazes at the silver haired masked young man sitting next to her.
The nobles felt the pleading gazes of their young generations and finally decided to bite the bullet, starting from the one who made the most noise due to the rumors that made all the major nobles ask for a meeting with the queen, Duke Nascenti.
"First of all, I thank her Majesty the Lamia queen on behalf of the Naga race for opening a space in her busy agenda...", the Duke took a second before continuing.
"Originally, what made my Nascenti family seek an audience with the Lamia royalty were some untasteful rumors that came to me through the mouths of the servants, stating something about a marriage that would completely disregard our kingdom's traditions, however, there is something that caught my attention and that is the fact that a slave of one of our enemies is standing there, behind our newest guest", he said.
Though Duke's words were rather elegant and his voice didn't have the slightest tinge of disrespect, the message he conveyed was incredibly rude, specially because in terms of position he wasn't an equal to Mirellia, the authority that the kings and queen of the Naga race held in the kingdom, was around a fourth part of that of Mirellia's, in other words the four of them had to agree to something in unison for it to be on par with the Lamia queen's orders, and that rarely if ever happened.
Unfortunately for the Duke, the one to answer him wasn't the Lamia queen but Daimon himself.
"Slave you say, Zia is my subordinate which means her status is higher than yours, old man, so be careful with your words"
That being said, this tradition was just a verbal agreement not a law or anything, but in this situation, not abiding by it would cause troubles for Mirellia, so she asked Daimon to play along, in any case it aligned with the result that they needed to put execute their plan.
Still, that didn't mean that Ferris who hated being treated like a trophy, couldn't speak on her own behalf.
"That is a mere verbal agreement from a long time ago, we are free to choose who to relate with and both my sister and me have rejected each and every one of the ones that want to fight "in our honor", if I wish so, I'll marry Gabriel and there is nothing anyone of you can do about it, I am the future queen of the Lamia race after all".
That was the signal, Daimon smiled and then got up from his seat while placing his hand on top of Ferris's shoulder.
"Since miss Ferris finds this "tradition" untasteful, let's make it like this, I'll play along but this will be the first and last time I hear anything about this thing, also I don't want to lose my time, so all the ones who want to participate, take a step ahead, I'll deal with all of you at once".
The confidence in his words was absolute, so much that the older nobles frowned, after witnessing how their young generation was taken hostage without them being able to do anything, they grew wary of the new guest that the queen brought.
Of course, after being rejected by Ferris and also looked down upon by Daimon, Tiff and the others were raring to go, they bowed towards their elders asking for their blessing to fight.
"Fine, from the Naga race, the four kings will provide their blood", said Duke Nascenti, the other two kings nodded and the Naga queen sighed but she still agreed, no one from her side will fight, but she had to comply with this request.
"From the Lamia race, I will provide my blood", added Mirellia, very much to the surprise of others, normally for these events one of three Duchesses would take this role, the queen has never done it, since the blood of the royal family is considered a treasure.
The five blood donors made a slight cut on their fingers and extracted a sole drop of their blood, with a few gestures a red rune circle appeared on the ground, the thing blinked until the five drops of blood fell on it making it stable.
Then a total of ten contenders jumped into the blood circle, before Daimon did the same, this array had a simple function, seal every force besides the bloodlines related to the ones selected by the casters of the array, the participants will then fight using only said bloodlines.
Tiff saw Daimon landing on the ground a few meters away from him and his eyes saw red, he has been courting both princesses for a couple of years and was harshly rejected every time, and here some random guy who appeared out of nowhere seemed to have won them over.
'So, what if you have a high status outside, here in Draim we the Naga race call the shots!', he inwardly screamed as he stimulated his Naga blood, making a few dark gray scales appear on his arms and legs, they shone for a moment producing a forty-meter image of a humanoid scaled creature of some kind.
"Oh, not bad, young master Tiff's lineage projection has grown to over thirty meters, even princess Ferris who is considered the most talented knight of her generation is around fifty meters", said one of the nobles subordinated to the Nascenti family.
The other contenders followed through, their lineages produced similar illusions thanks to the support of the array, but the largest was Tiff's one.
"If you don't manage to create your lineage projection in the next minute, it will be our victory...", Tiff's sentence was stopped in cold by a single word from Daimon.
"Kneel", what followed is a spectacle that will be forever engraved in the hearts of the present nobles, well, the ones who will survive to this day's events.
Though illusionary, black inked water poured out of Daimon's body until a giant wave above two hundred meters raised behind him, from within the black nightmarish wave a pair of yellow sun-like eyes shone, next the sound of glass shattering followed by screams, echoed through the room.
"Crack!".
"Aghhhhhh!"
The projections of the contenders exploded on the spot and their respective owners vomited blood and fell to the ground in pain.
"Impossible!", the backers of the contenders screamed in unison as they rushed towards their young generation to confirm their status, all of them but Duke Nascenti whose son was still conscious but half kneeled on the ground.
The burden of Daimon's lineage projection was shared among the ten contenders, who had in average a projection of twenty meters, so Tiff received less pressure compared to others, that being said, the veins on his whole body were bulging due to the humiliation, he a prince of the Naga race obeyed the order to kneel in front of an outsider, whose realm is lower than his!
"Go to hell!", he shouted as he rolled out of the circle which allowed him to regain his middle stage Archmage realm.
In his anger, he forgot that earlier he was handled like a toy by Rita, but Duke Nascenti didn't, which is why he jumped into the action to interfere.
"Stop Tiff, the one in the shadows, hold your hand!", he screamed, but he was a step too late.
"Aghhhh!", Tiff's miserable scream drew the attention of all the presents, his arms and legs were twisted in a strange angle making him fall to the ground, to then be restrained by dark chains, before he could continue screaming his tongue was teared off as well, finally forcing him to faint.
Duke Nascenti trembled from anger, but before he could speak, Mirellia's voice acted like a bucket of cold water being poured on him.
"Attacking the other party in the array is punishable with death, young master Gabriel has graciously spared your son's life, don't you have anything to say Duke Nascenti?".
"T...Thanks young master Gabriel", said the Duke while gritting his teeth, the queen nodded and then said.
"Well, now that you have witnesses such a crushing victory, I'll make my official declaration over your doubts regarding those rumors, they are fake", such words brought hope to the heats of all the young make nobles present, only for that to be utterly crushed the next second.
"The one marrying our dear guest in the present, will be me, as for my daughters they will be engaged for the time being".