"Hey, how did you do that?", asked Daimon to the devilish koala that was hugging him with a steel-like grip, luckily Daimon's body was tougher than metal, other guy would have had his bones shattered by the innately strong crazy girl who was also a knight.
Anyway, back to the important subject, Sarah not only bypassed the undead head maid's initial detection, she also was fast enough to take Daimon by surprise, only his instincts reacted on time, unfortunately she wasn't classified as a "threat" by them, so his body didn't automatically defend against her assault.
"A queen can always return to her king's side~", said the crazy girl as she tried to rub her face against Daimon's, only for her to be stopped in cold by a shadow hand that got in between.
"Humph", a soft snort could be heard coming from Daimon's shadow, chains surrounded Sarah's arms, legs and neck and forcefully separated her from Daimon.
"Don't listen to her nonsense Daimon, she simply teleported from a distance long enough to be out of my "perfect sense" and then did the same thing again as soon as she appeared to dodge my countermeasure", said Rita as she kept adding chain after chain around Sarah's body, until only her head, hands and feet were visible.
Daimon nodded at Rita and was momentarily lost in his thoughts, her reasoning made sense, Sarah somehow used a spatial movement spell that was fast and covered enough distance to bypass the undead head maid's senses and his own detection.
'This better not be a permanent thing...', he thought.
"Daimon, how do you wish to dispose of this menace, should I throw her up into the prison of my castle?", asked the undead head maid, making Daimon return to the real world.
"Hey, why not chain me to your bed instead~", merrily said the crazy girl, who almost drooled as she imagined Daimon putting a leash on her, with the other end being tied to the frame of his bed.
While Rita felt her eyebrow twitch due to anger, Daimon sighed as he shook his head.
"Forget it, I bet she'll end up enjoying it anyway", he said, making Sarah giggle to then say.
"Come on, I was a good girl, I just wanted some love after a really long time of not seeing you", said the crazy girl, as impossible as it might sound, Daimon actually believed her, since their time in Kerrol, the crazy girl learnt that if she didn't cross certain boundaries, Daimon wouldn't avoid her.
Since rejecting her will only flip her switch, this was the best and only way Daimon found to deal with her, one had to give it to her, Erin used to be the only one who could force Daimon to his wit's end, but the crazy girl became the second one, sure she did it by going to the extreme instead of calculated plotting unlike that fox girl, but it was still an achievement.
'Whatever, I had memorized that energy firm from earlier, so no one else using that will be able to completely bypass my detection', thought Rita as she pouted.
Of course, Daimon could tell that the undead head maid was sulking, not only because Sarah was annoying but because she took pride in her detection and the crazy girl bypassed her.
Luckily for Rita, a chance to "redeem" herself came a couple of minutes after the appearance of the crazy girl.
"Someone is coming, two people, they'll appear at twenty meters right and the other fifty meters left", said the undead head maid, her statement was confirmed a second later when the space at those specific spots blurred and two familiar voices could be heard coming seemingly out of nowhere.
"See I told you that psycho would even let her allies suffer as long as she could be here before us, even if it was just a few seconds", said the first voice with a tinge of anger.
"Don't be like that, the round was practically over... besides we all wanted to come as soon as we noticed it", said the second voice with a mellower tone.
The blurs in the space disappeared, revealing a pair of pretty girls one light blond haired with light green eyes and the other who looked a bit older and had dirty blond hair as well as dark green eyes, of course we are talking about the recently reunited sisters, Jasmine and Reyne.
Both sisters looked downwards and their eyes sparkled the very second, they saw Daimon standing there a few meters away from them, but then they both saw the crazy girl who was chained up on the ground with a dumb happy face while she gazed at Daimon and they both sighed, as they descended from the sky.
"It's good to see you two are doing fine", said Daimon, the atmosphere between Jasmin and Reyne wasn't awkward anymore, they have apparently gotten closer thanks to whatever they have experienced so far.
"Mm, besides that menace driving me crazy every five seconds or so, it hasn't been that bad", said Reyne as she gave Daimon a quick hug to greet him, making Jasmine pout, her sister was way more daring than her.
"Hey you joined the group last, so me and Jas are your seniors, wait until Jas receives her dose of Daimon~", untactfully said the crazy girl, making Jasmine's face turn red as an apple.
Daimon bitterly smiled, Jasmine was quite more reserved compared to her sisters, so he simply placed his hand on the top of her head, words weren't needed, Jasmine smiled at Daimon and the greeting time was over.
"Ahem, young master, before we were interrupted, I had something to report...", mumbled Rita as she dispelled the shadow chains binding Sarah, against her wishes of course.
"What happened?", asked Daimon as he dodged to the right, making Sarah end up hugging Jasmine, the crazy girl pouted trying to imitate Jasmine to see if she could get something out of it, but she was ignored by Daimon, which by itself made her happy.
"Those women from the Black Night race, contacted me a moment ago, they said they could feel "something" strongly calling them from the north, also I bet Daimon already knows this, but practically all the other members of the team who we haven't met so far, are here, including those four from earlier", said the undead head maid.
Daimon nodded, he couldn't directly pinpoint their positions unlike Rita, but he could feel their overall direction, Calvin, Michael, Haylee, Loren, Cassy, Chris, the Risha sisters and even Lance and his second in command "Julio" were here, but they weren't the only ones, Daimon was surprised to feel the presences of Scarlet and the others whom he hadn't met since they separated before arriving at Neptune from the first layer of the magic ruin, he wondered how did they ended up here.
But that wasn't all, there was another thing that didn't with his understanding of the challenges.
'I thought only I was able to participate in the challenges of the girls involved in the missions, so how come these three are here at the same time', thought Daimon before saying.
"Can you show me, Rita?".
"Mm", the undead head maid happily nodded as she shared her sight with Daimon, going through the different battlefield were Calvin and the others were finishing their fights, it didn't escape Daimon's eyes that Calvin and the others were not only moving and fighting on a level that far surpassed their realms, but also there were... nethereals fighting alongside them.
That's right, those girls who originally couldn't get stronger had found their way to, probably during the challenge they had gone through, not only that, they were early-stage Lord ranks already, with the exception of Ruby who was a four-star mage, probably because she was still quite young and Amber who had already reached the middle stage of the Lord rank, also she and Scarlet were the only knights on their group.
"I see", said Daimon as he inspected those five's mana circuits with his infinity eyes, the energy they were using wasn't old regular mana, but nether or something similar to it, there was a strong emotion mixed in the energy that circulated through their bodies, but unlike nether, it wasn't on the negative side of the specter.
Scarlet and the others smiled at Daimon, they wanted to tell him everything about their adventure, especially the young Ruby, but they knew to wait until he had caught up with his friends, in any case Daimon saw they were happy and in high spirits and that's all that mattered for now.
Reyne saw that Sarah was getting all the attention and she pouted, she wasn't shameless enough to sit on the ground right next to Daimon's feet, to she simply cleared her throat to then say.
"Ahem, my challenge was called "Dead Resources", we had to use the materials from the corpses of some strange magic beasts that were quite well preserved to fight with each other, I just finished choosing the magic beast I was going to use when that menace appeared not too far from me", she said as she pointed at the crazy girl.
Last but not least, it was Jasmine's turn.
"Mine was "Bloody Strategy", the participants had to take control of some strange blank golems using either buffs or debuffs, to give them special functions, in order to capture the enemy's leader, before the challenge started, I appeared next to Sarsh and Reyne, and then everyone else started arriving".
"Did the challenges remained the same or they were altered after you ended up together?", asked Daimon.
"Mmm, half and half, the individual rules of the original challenges remained, they respectively apply to each one of us, but there was also a change that applied to the three of us altogether", said Reyne.
"We were given titles with assigned abilities, for me, Sarah and Reyne we got the "queen" tittle, with the ability to move as we please through the battlefield, we can assign one of the other tittles to our allies, be it knight, rook or bishop and we get an overall boost based on our allies, but it only works during the official round of battle, which is why we are staying in the safe zone, namely this mansion", added Jasmine.
'I guess that explains how that crazy girl bypassed Rita's detection', thought Daimon as he nodded, the new rules obviously resembled those of chess, but they weren't completely the same, after all counting everyone here there wouldn't be enough pieces for the those three to have each a set of knights, rooks and bishops, though they did have all their "pawns" provided by their original challenges.
"The other participants were turned into knights, rooks and bishops unlike us and we haven't been able to see who is leading them now, there had only been some skirmishes here and the since we couldn't start the real thing, until the last remaining "position" was assigned, the king~", said the crazy girl.
"So that's what you meant earlier, I thought it was just your usual rambling", casually said Daimon, making Jasmine giggle.
"Hey class rep, you must stand up for me, I told those three that I could play the role of king and they beat the hell out of me", complained Calvin, which earned him a death glare from Reyne, Sarah and even the usually docile Jasmine.
"Ahem, what I meant is that these three ladies insisted on waiting for you", said Calvin in response to those murderous gazes.
"I swear one day that mouth of yours is going to kill you", added Michael, which made Hayle and Loren chuckle.
Daimon bitterly smiled, now that his attention was drawn by Calvin, he confirmed his previous supposition, he, Michael and even Haylee and Loren had advanced, Calvin and Michael were early stage seventh star mages!
While Haylee and Loren became peak fifth star mages, the difference in advancement was probably because Calvin and Michael suffered the most during their time when they were captured, after recovering and then going into their respective challenged they were able to make multiple advances, it was normal.
'That stupid magic core of mine better wakes up soon, I can't be left behind by everyone in my class', thought Daimon.
Still Calvin's newfound glory didn't last long, with his new realm he would normally have been able to fight against any of the three nethereal sisters, well with the exception of Sarah since she has started to learn about Will Manipulation, courtesy of the strange atmosphere of Kerrol.
Unfortunately for the young master of the desert coyote race, not only Sarah was stronger than him in her base form now, but Jasmine and Reyne had their respective boosting spells, so the three of them joining hands was more than enough to kick his ass, he also didn't resist of course.
In any case, his skin was quite thick both literally and figuratively, so contrary to his complains he didn't really suffer... too much.
Daimon then felt bitterness coming at him from his sides, where the Risha sisters who had the word "notice us" written all over their pretty faces, were stealing glances at him from time to time.
Of course, they had also advanced and since they had some of Daimon's mana still lingering in their bodies, they could tell he scanned Calvin and the others, but hadn't done the same with them.
'These jealous girls...', thought Daimon, still he knew exactly how to appease them.
"Ahem, I can't believe you advanced so fast, after breaking through not too long ago, you should be able to store more mana for your wings now, right?".
The Risha sisters's eyes sparkled, Daimon wasn't just speaking empty words, he was indeed surprised, using the elemental conversion array of the Flying Citadel they had reached the fifth star realm in preparation for the Global Raid, and now they were peak sixth star mages, their growth was amazing.
You might argue that Calvin and Michael advanced more, but they were focusing solely on their realms, while the Risha sisters put more focus on developing their wings, so a large part of their time was dedicated to that.
Daimon who thought he was out of danger after appeasing the Risha sisters, was brought back to real world when three crown symbols, one purple, one red and one white, landed on him.
"And with that you are our king, shouldn't we start working on producing an heir as soon as possible~", said the crazy girl as she licked her lips, earning a cold glare from the Risha sisters.
'Now imagine when they meet your fox and wolf girls, not to mention Aisha~', said Evangeline who was really enjoying the drama.
'Don't forget about me Eve!', added Narasha, making Daimon worry about his future, but for now there was something else that was worth worrying for.
Now that he received the "king" position from those three, he could somewhat feel the presence of the other kings and they had a certain familiar aura to them.
'Something is weird, they feel rather weak, I guess it's time to "activate" that guy', thought Daimon as he inwardly smirked.