A few minutes after Daimon and the others had grouped at the farthest point away from the entrance, the elevator finally returned to the lowest level of the secret lab, luckily before all this, Daimon had ordered Celia to close the door again.
Which both prevented anyone who came here to realize there was already someone inside this level and also acted as an alarm, since to be on the safe side, the range of vision of the infinity eyes with the assistance of Rita's senses, has been kept to a hundred meters.
And just the door covered that distance, not to mention their current position was around a whole kilometer away from the entrance of the level, with plain sight, Daimon's eyes were good enough to see through that distance, but the effects of the infinity eyes stopped at a hundred meters to prevent being detected.
"There are only two races to whom I could believe that woman would assign to do such... things, one of them is the Red String race and the other is the Black Spirit race".
"The first is a male exclusive reptile race which was designed to be obsessed with Thalia, they are at her beck and call and would literally die to get as much of a glance from her, they are the top of the pyramid in terms of authority below her, since their loyalty goes beyond what contracts and lineage subordination can do, their mentality is screwed up and that's why they can never advance past the middle Stellar rank by themselves, also they are all become knights in order to have a sturdy constitution, Thalia's personal guards are exclusively conformed by them".
You might think that such a mentality resembled the effect of the Terror Contract, but that's not the case, since the latter allows the contracted to keep their personality, in order to not cripple the potential of the contracted to keep on getting stronger, their minds are kept intact, they only are unable to so much as harbor any ill intent towards their master, which has two functions and results.
Either they keep living with fear which adds up to Overlord's Pride from which the Terror Contractor skill was derived, or they become true loyal subordinates.
"As disgusting as the previous sounds, I personally dislike the second race even more, the Black Heart race is a snake race, they value Thalia's life and researching, nothing else... I have heard rumors of them using their own children as bait, to lure out and capturing members of the Dark Berserker's army, they aren't apt for battle but they are good at strategy since their blood is as cold as damn ice, I still remember they discarding one of the squads in which I worked, in order to get a hold of a strategic position in the battlefield, they are always mages", added Zia.
Those were only two possible options of enemies, that will come out of the entrance, Zia didn't speak about this earlier, because she lacked information to make a fool's proof prediction, but after witnessing the scene from earlier, she got what she needed, since even her race which is quite loyal to Thalia, would question such experiments given enough time, but those two wouldn't.
"Rita be prepared to isolate the whole room, shall the need arise to, Celia your priority is to protect those two and secondly to subjugate the target without killing it, at my order, Zia you assist her if needed", said Daimon after processing the information given by Zia.
"Mm, leave it to me", unhesitatingly said the undead head maid.
"Understood young master", added Zia, as for the former Duchess, she was given the order to not talk unless it was strictly needed, so she limited herself to nod in a subservient way.
The previous took long to explain but happened in the expanse of time used by the other party to walk through the corridor connected to the giant door and the time needed to manually open the door.
'It took less time for the door to open, so physically the newcomer is stronger than Celia, but not enough to be considered a knight, that or simple slacking', thought Daimon, as he waited for the newly arrived other party to enter his sight range, which happened a moment later followed by the sound of steps, the figure of a lanky woman with sickly white skin, short black hair and a pretty much emotionless expression, became visible.
'Second option it is, then', said Daimon to Zia who nodded in response, the person in charge of the lab was a member of the Black Spirit snake race.
Under Daimon's watchful eyes, the woman looked at the laboratory from the entrance before pulling a cart with a couple of barrels and a few metal boxes that could perfectly fit in the elevator, along with her, she gazed at the faded red array at one side before looking at the snake statue in one of the many cages to then speak out loud.
"So, are you finally going to speak, or is subject Q256 as unimportant to you as all the previous have been".
"...", being met with absolute silence, the woman clicked her tongue with an annoyed expression on her face, before taking out a metal harpoon which was placed on the pulling cart along with the large barrel.
"Oh well, this was still a successful "catch" after twenty thousand failed tries, so at least I'll have something new to show to the queen, I wonder if this one's dissection would be useful enough to design a new race, or if it will become summoning resources".
And with those words and zero hesitation, the woman casually approached the cage where that damaged snake was passed out and stabbed the harpoon on its head.
"Clank!", the cage shook up as the snake's eyes opened on the spot, but things returned to normal a second later as life abandoned the magic beast, just like that an early-stage Stellar rank magic beast died.
"That magic beast wasn't rational despite its rank", mumbled Daimon, this situation was eerily similar to the one of those snakes and reptiles in Thalia's army, something of which no one had information about, according to Zia, Thalia's subordinates were either born with human form or were magic beasts, the second would never obtain wisdom and human form.
It was an unspoken rule was to not ask about it to anyone, the team captains like Zia were given an upgraded identity token, with which they could command their subordinates, but the real authority was on Thalia's hands.
As to why Daimon didn't act to save that snake, it didn't align with his plans, earlier he had seen through the bigger barrel and it was completely empty, as for the other one it was filled with a viscous mix of blood and based on the fleshy bits he could see, organs as well.
Bringing an empty barrel to a place where an array made out of blood was laid, could only mean one thing, the woman was going to harvest the blood of the now dead snake magic beast.
And as if following a script, the woman walked towards one of the many tables and took a thick hose connected to a pump, which was then connected with staff of the harpoon on one extreme and the lid of the barrel on the other.
The woman moved the pump a couple of times and flowed through the hose into the barrel, due to the big size of the snake it didn't take long before the barrel was full, the woman disconnected the hose but left the harpoon to block the wound, perfectly sealing it to prevent the corpse from bleeding, clearly this was a refined process.
Despite not having preserving arrays to prevent the corpse from rotting, the temperature down here was rather low and also magic beasts had strong vitality into their flesh, so it would take at least a few days before the corpse even started decaying.
"Let's start with Q257 right away, you'll make things easier for us if you stopped playing dead and gave the queen what she wants", said the woman as she dragged the cart along with her, towards the cage with the snake statue.
She grabbed a knife and scratched the surface of the statue, shaving a thin layer of it and collecting the resulting dust into a tray to then throw the dust into the contents of the smaller barrel.
'K...u...hh', unlike any of the others in the room, Daimon heard a forced teeth gritting hurtling sound coming from the statue, meaning that even if it was in this state, the one inside of it could feel pain.
That being said, the statue had no superficial marks of wounds, nor cracks, so it was a bit strange that just having its scales scraped with a knife, made someone who supposedly fought and defeated a system user, feel pain, at least under normal circumstances.
'In the diary, it said that she separated her soul from her body to extend her lifespan after suffering a fatal wound, but assuming that at least half of it was a lie and considering that the Hydra guy was able to cast such a powerful curse on Marlene's clan, then this might be the result of a curse as well, something to weaken and immobilize her to a certain extent', thought Daimon.
'Now!', he shouted to Rita, Zia and Celia though the mental connection, for Naomi she only saw a flash and a mana barrier appear, while Ferris managed to see Celia appearing behind of the woman who was crazily shouting a second ago while Zia focused on protecting them.
But Daimon managed to see the whole thing as he pushed his senses to the limit, in front of his eyes, Celia casted a dark water spinning sphere around the woman in order to take her out, but she was still a fraction of a second late to prevent the other party from taking action.
The surprising thing is that not only the woman didn't try to defend herself, but that with one hand she pressed her communication device while with the other she aimed a dagger to her head while she also threw a few of them in many directions, in other words she was determined to inform her superior that someone had infiltrated, even if it meant having to die for it.
What followed next was the whole walls of the room being as well as the communication device on the woman's hand being enveloped in an invisible layer of Rita's mana, while at the same time black water spheres restrained the woman's legs, arms and head blowing away the mana she had gathered just right before she casted an all-out offensive spell.
With a few "clanks", a couple of daggers thrown by the woman clashed against Zia's mana barrier, actually making a few cracks on it, despite having been casted with practically a third of Zia's mana reserves, but ultimately the surprise attack was blocked.
Still, Daimon managed to see the lips of the woman slightly curve upwards, before she passed out due to the lack of oxygen and the black water sphere around her head rotating at full speed forcing her to lose her consciousness.
'Damn it', inwardly cursed Daimon, as he instinctively looked at the roof of this level, one of the many daggers which the woman threw in seemingly random directions, hit a specific spot.
However, the lab didn't collapse or anything like that, now that the sole information leaking source was out, he directly expanded the range of the effects of the infinity eyes, reaching all the way to the roof, seeing right through the part where the dagger was stabbed and surprise, the thing hit a hidden spring.
Now, all signals were blocked by Rita so the thing didn't send any message, it was a purely mechanical thing, a spring that connected this level all the way out of Daimon sight's range, which was around two thousand kilometers thanks to borrowing Rita's senses, so he had no choice but to ask the undead head maid to where did that spring led to.
'Rita, where does that thing end?', he asked.
'To the level above us at four kilometers of distance, it triggered a button on that level that opened all the cages on it... I can see many magic beasts of different ranges going crazy and escaping their cages, rushing to the corridor connected to the thing that brought us down here', said Rita referring to the elevator.
"Heh, so the plan is to use those magic beasts to both alert the surface and destroy anything stored in the upper levels", said Daimon, which made the undead head maid as well as Zia lower their heads with a gloomy expression on their faces, they failed to prevent this situation from troubling Daimon, Celia on the other hand felt ice cold, being afraid of Daimon punishing her for screwing up.
After all she as the vanguard and the servant with the highest realm, was supposed to perfectly restrain the enemy but she failed to do so, also, she was perfectly aware that her status was that of a mere servant, while Rita and Zia were treated as allies instead.
That being said, Daimon didn't blame any of them, well Celia was indeed at fault for not following in terms of speed with her enemy who was also a peak high stage Stellar rank, but for Rita and Zia, they perfectly fulfilled their tasks as much as their abilities allowed them to do so.
Rita cut off any signal from being sent in the really small fraction of time that took the communication device to activate and also isolated the device, while keeping an eye on Daimon and the Lamia princesses, her realm was the lowest among the three but her insane senses allowed her to follow up with the speed of a high stage Stellar's actions, even when the latter was disregarding her own life to achieve her goal.
On Zia's side, despite not being a combatant she blocked the attack of someone a whole stage above hers, burning a third of her mana reserves in less than a second, it was praise-worthy that she wasn't shaken in the slight over such an abrupt change in her mana reserves, Daimon can casually spawn high mana cost spells, since he is also a knight, so even if his mana diminishes too fast, he wouldn't feel the setback brought by it, but Zia isn't like that, for those who are only mages to use those kind of spells at such high speed and not feel the recoil, it required them to have a high mastery of mana manipulation.
While not as "talented" as the undead head maid as of current, she hadn't gotten her new abilities due to the special Terror Contract, so this was a proof that she wasn't a slacker but an elite, who wouldn't fall behind Rita under the same conditions.
'Cheer up you two, the priority goals which I set up were perfectly fulfilled, that woman threw any chance of escaping or surviving away in exchange of achieving her goal, so it's understandable that she managed to get something through, if you hate being surpassed by such enemies focus those emotions into improving so it doesn't repeat', he said to Rita and Zia.
'Okay~'.
'Understood young master!'.
While the undead head maid swam in the limitless dark void inside Daimon's shadow with a happy expression on her pretty face as she answered, Zia's eyes sparkled with enlightenment and excitement as if she had understood something important.
Leaving that aside, Daimon could feel some of the strongest auras of the beast that were going out of their cages above, there were a couple of early high stage Stellar beasts and around ten middle stage ones, the rest were middle or peak Arch rank, probably the early stage Stellars were used as resources for the array, just like that snake which now lied dead inside the cage at the corner of the room.
Rita was isolating all the way from this to the fifth level, in other words she expanded a barrier of mana that covered five kilometers, something possible thanks to her recent advance to the Half Stellar realm, still stretching it more than that would diminish its effect so they had to move.
It's worth mentioning that above the lowest level in which they were, there were four kilometers of solid metal with nothing in between, in other words instead of ten levels, there were just six, from one to five, then four kilometers of metal and the sixth level or tenth one depending on how you counted them.
"We have to move ladies, let's deal with that beast riot before anything else", he said to the others.
"Perfect, I was getting stiff over having nothing to do", mumbled Ferris as her previously carefree attitude disappeared, her muscles tensed as she entered an offensive stance, just like a snake ready to bite off the throat of its prey.
Naomi also seemed interested in fighting, as for Rita and Zia they were more than eager to get rid of the evidence of their ""failure"", Celia didn't count but she was thanking all the stars in the sky that she wasn't being actively blamed for the current situation and felt a deep burning rage towards those beasts, for opening a chance for a path in which she might end up being punished.
There was another person present in the room though, a voice which now everyone could hear, came from the lifeless statue.
"Is it okay to believe that you'll come down here after dealing with them...", she asked.
"Yes, I don't plan on leaving before a couple of hours anyway, so we'll have a nice conversation after I deal with those guys, if you need one of them alive, now is the time to speak", answered Daimon
"No, after all that has been done to those poor beasts, it would be mercy to put them out of their misery".
Daimon nodded at the statue and ignoring the Lamia princesses's curious gazes, he rushed towards the elevator and burned a hole on its roof using Demon Light, before saying.
"Rita, take us to the fifth level using a barrier".
"Mm", with a soft sound a black mana barrier covered the whole group and immediately rushed upwards, in case you wonder the now restrained and passed out woman from the Black Spirit clan was kept in a much smaller barrier, which was filled up to 80% with Celia's black water rotating, to keep her passed down while still allowing her to breath every now and then.