Chapter 75: Imprisonment
Hiro looked up through the torn-down building, but he couldn't see through the hazy light concealing the woman's figure.
However, he had the feeling that she was looking his way.
The woman looked up, reached with her hand, and grabbed at the air.
Buzz!
The next moment, she retrieved the fragment from the sealed space without destroying it, displaying her degree of control when it came to energy manipulation and application of power.
Hiro's lips twitched. What a show-off!
Once this thought settled, the woman disappeared together with the fragment from the Minor Realm and the forbidden curse item.
It took a moment for the black raven to regain its senses, and during that time, the woman had already appeared next to Hiro.
She didn't speak to him at first. Instead, she waved her hand and pushed the fragment into the female demon's body.
Waving her hand, threads of faith energy imbued with the laws of casualties reversed the cause and effect, restoring the fragment to its earlier sealed state while slowly healing the female demon.
"How bothersome, I don't dare accept this gift," as she spoke, she snapped her fingers.
Translucent, multicolored threads spread from the female's body in all directions, like a web of silk, each thread revealing different scenes.
When the threads were no longer growing out of the female demon's body, Hiro noticed that one of them was connected to himself.
It was very dense, and it revealed his interactions not with the female demon but with the fragment from the Minor Realm.
Then, like a torn film, the threads snapped one at a time, and the images faded together with it.
The speed was immense, and in moments, millions of threads snapped.
Hiro looked outside, and he could easily spot the look of confusion in the eyes of the countless demons on the streets.
Even the black raven in his capacity as the 4th general, was no exception. When it was Hiro's turn, something unexpected happened.
The thread stretched and bent, but didn't snap.
Hiro's heart skipped a beat, as he somewhat understood what happened. It wasn't Hiro who discovered this fragment, it was the system.
Following the cause and effect, if she wanted to reverse the situation and use the laws of the Demom Realm to cancel this interaction, this woman had to overpower the system.
What a joke! Hiro thought to himself. However, he was worried this might offend her.
As someone who ruled a pocket dimension, he understood how ridiculously overpowered were those with authority.
Unless they were fighting in an independent space from the Demon Realm, this woman was invincible.
However, Hiro was also curious. If she was this invincible, how can people plot against her?
While he was thinking, Asmir was also surprised.
She inspected Hiro's body once again, confirming that he was just an ordinary demon with an ordinary bloodline.
However, she couldn't see through his past, nor could she tamper with the cause and effect of his actions.
She frowned.
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This is troublesome, Asmir thought to herself while musing. I can't let the word of this fragment leak out, my hands are too full at the moment.
She expected to deal with a rebellion, but she hadn't expected things to turn out to be so tricky.
After hesitating for a moment, she waved her hand and left.
Asmir decided to take both the unconscious female and Hiro together with her.
The wind blew, and the wrecked basement was left empty.
"Caw! My head hurts," the black raven's body shrank in size, and as he flapped his wings, he inspected the surroundings.
For some reason, he felt like something big had happened. However, he couldn't remember clearly.
"Caw! Forget it, let's see if there's anything interesting around the stronghold today!"
Impatient, the black raven flew off, circling the skies of the stronghold while searching for something interesting to do.
His intuition told him that soon, he wouldn't have the time to enjoy such leisurely days.
"Hm? Why do I feel like I forgot about someone interesting? Caw! Whatever! Caw!"
…
Hiro felt the world around him spin and in the next moment, he found himself in a huge hall.
No, it was a huge library, judging from the spiraling bookshelves all around.
"I don't know why you've intruded on my stronghold," an enchanting voice, though disembodied, echoed. "As a punishment for trespassing, you'll serve your sentence as an official in my court until you've gained my favor."
Asmir didn't dare to act rashly and kill Hiro because she didn't understand his background clearly.
Until she saw things clearly, she decided to keep an eye on him. As long as he didn't leave her side, and by extension, the stronghold; Asmir felt that things should be under control.
When the voice faded away, Hiro finally calmed down and decided to take stalk of his situation.
At the moment, he was very nervous.
He only had one week's worth of achievement points left if he were to use {Synchronization}.
For battles on the Stronghold Lord's level, a casual fight would last for days. Obviously, his synchronization time wasn't enough.
Also, if he were to leave, she could easily find him the moment he returned to the Demon Realm.
It couldn't be helped, laws of causality were just that unreasonable.
Hiro directly sat down on the floor and removed his mask, leaving behind the cosmetics of two crimson horns on his forehead.
No matter what, the system's disguise was omnipotent, and the demonic energy in his body wouldn't lie.
Even if he didn't wear anything with the exception of those horns, no one can tell his origin as a human.
Hiro understood that even if he couldn't sense or see it, he was definitely being observed right now.
With that in mind, he closed his eyes and started to meditate. Anyway, he hadn't tried to absorb demonic energy in the Demon Realm yet, and he felt like it was about time to experience it.
The presence of demonic energy in this place isn't bad, Hiro thought to himself.
There wasn't a need for any complications or techniques, he could just activate his innate physique and draw demonic energy from the environment.
However, he made sure to control the flow of demonic energy so that he wouldn't alarm whoever was watching.
Thinking back to the performance of his demonic followers in the game, he imitated the standards of a demon with an above-average talent.
Just like that, Hiro found himself in a stable position in the Demon Realm, albeit as a prisoner of sorts.
He couldn't get his hands on land, property, or even a worthy job—but he wasn't dissatisfied.
For the following days, if Hiro wasn't training with his demonic energy, he would then be reading through the countless books in the library.
Hiro had no idea that this wasn't an ordinary secret library, but Asmir's private collection of knowledge.
As someone who dabbled in the laws of cause and effect, she had a keen interest in history.
Asmir's favorite motto—as humans describe it— was: "The present is the effect when the past is the cause, and the present is the cause for the future is the effect."
Regardless, Hiro also discovered a few manuals of demonic arts stashed away on the shelves, albeit of low quality.
Despite their low grades, Hiro gladly learned and started to practice them while browsing through the most recent history spanning the last century in the Demon Realm.
Conquests, both successful and failure; civil wars, both far and near; aristocratic history, the rise and fall.
Hiro found records on many things, and while he was a little interested in searching for discrepancies in the collection, most of his attention was on the demonic arts and his personal training.
Hiro thought that he would have to spend days if not weeks, and perhaps months trapped in imprisonment, but he hadn't expected to be summoned to the throne room one week later.
Although confused, Hiro answered the summons nonetheless.
…
"Caw! I remember you! Wait, what are you doing here?!"
The moment Hiro stepped into the room, he was shouted… No, rather cawed at by the black raven who was perched on the high back of a luxurious chair.
Whoosh!
The others in the room turned their gaze over, a mixture of expressions in their eyes.
Hiro noticed two humans standing respectively on the side, a male and a female.
They were shocked to see him, but their expressions quickly dimmed and returned to normal.
They must have assumed that I'm a human just like them, Hiro mused. But then they noticed my curved horns.
As both a gamble and an experiment, Hiro was dressed in the black trench coat this time around, but he didn't conceal his hands and face.
However, his tailcoat of black hellfire sold him out, exposing his identity to the black raven.
A gentle voice fell from above. "Mind your manners, little sparrow."
Hiro traced the voice.
There, at the end of the hall was a pristine white staircase, enshrouded in holy white mist that contrasted sharply with the demonic ambiance.
Can she still call herself a demon?! Hiro wanted to curse—this display was more holy than naked divine energy.
The moment Hiro looked up, five out of the six demons exploded with anger.
"Impudent!"
Six voices overlapped, sweeping out like a heavy tsunami toward Hiro.
Hiro frowned.