Chapter 564: An incompetent ally is worse than a cunning enemy (part 2)
The moment that island appeared at the horizon, those two stopped flying due to Dian rising his hand with a wary expression.
"Wait a moment brother Belliel", said the white shark guy as he took out a small mirror out of his pocket with utmost care.
Daimon didn't see the guy taking that mirror out of his ring earlier which means that the shark guy already had it in his pocket, before this memory started, luckily the function of the mirror was explained the next second.
"I'm sorry for the trouble, but among those three bastards are there is a really annoying woman, even if there is a patrolling schedule as well as a map regarding how much territory do the detection formations of the spaceships cover, she tends to randomly change it and inform after", said Dian as he gritted his teeth.
The shark guy made a cut on his finger and let some drops of his blood flow into the mirror, which then created a "bubble" around them, then Daimon's vision which was basically the same as Agrak's changed.
Inside of the bubble the sight was quite interesting, lines and fields of different colors appeared all over the area, Agrak's eyes shone with greed the very moment he realized what kind of treasure was that small mirror.
"A mirror purely made with Star Void Glass, brother Dian surely knows how to enjoy life", he said with an envy filled voice.
"Brother Belliel must be joking, this is a family heirloom which I was supposed to pass onto my successor, Star Void Glass is the sole material that can fully ignore detection arrays regardless of level… unfortunately that damn woman's family and mine have a deep feud so there have been a lot of eyes on me from the very beginning, so I had to resort to use it now", answered Dian with an aggrieved voice as he looked at the mirror which now that Daimon caught a better glance off, had a lot of cracks all over it.
In other words, it was an expendable treasure with a limited number of uses, which was perfectly understandable considering the amazing effect it had.
'Damn, even the Hollow Suit which was on the top tier list of currently attainable items in the shop of the system, is realm-limited, and that thing isn't', Daimon couldn't help but curse in his mind.
On the other hand, based on what those two said, the material used for that mirror should be extremely hard to get, it was also good for Daimon to see the world through the eyes of higher ranked beings first-hand, so that he could be prepared for future conflicts.
Inside of that bubble those two were completely isolated from the outside, so without any further ado, they rushed towards the island, landing a couple of minutes later.
As to why Agrak didn't leave now that Dian had returned safe and sound, that is because now that those two had become allies, Agrak wanted to map the island and also, they had to prepare a trap since their target would be one of the two commanders that would be free during the next battle.
"We are at the east periphery, this area is under the jurisdiction of that annoying woman from the Vallmery family, out of the three commanders she is the weakest so my suggestion is that we focus on her".
Agrak inwardly snorted, how could he not know that Dian wanted his help to get rid of his personal enemy, what's more since that woman was the weakest the chances of, she having what the Nethereal higher ups wants, was really low.
'Tsk, this bastard isn't as stupid as I thought, still don't think you can use me without paying the price', he thought before saying.
"With the two of us working together, even if we might not be strong enough to fight the strongest commander, dealing with the second one considering we have the advantage of being in the shadows, should be quite easy, also in a wild guess, the "payment" you promised me will come from the commander we'll kill as a team, right?".
Dian inwardly clicked his tongue knowing that the greedy guy in front of him, won't be moved unless he sees benefits, still he knew how to solve it.
"Let's not beat around the bush, it will be in the best of my interest to make sure that annoying woman dies, sure since she is the youngest and weakest, the treasures in her ring won't amount to the same as the other possible target, so what could be a fair price in order for me to get to choose the target of our cooperation?", he said.
Agrak smiled in response, a feeling of superiority filled his heart as he answered with a "magnanimous" voice.
"If the difference is in treasure terms, I seem to remember brother Dian mentioning having access to the inventory, take me there so that I can get new additions to my collection, that would make things even, I don't care who of the three leaders on my side will die, after all".
'Greedy bastard', thought Dian but he kept on a smile as he nodded in response.
"No problem, the treasury is in a separate space, since it's not under the jurisdiction of a sole party, there is an access here, so I can take you there right now, in fact we'll need some materials to prepare our trap and we can thin some resources they'll need, it's a win-win situation", he said.
Agrak agreed and so the two of them advanced through the island, instead of going towards the giant "building" in the center of this huge island that should be the original form of one of the main masses of land of Neptune in the future, they sped towards a certain cave near the border.
Once they arrived at their destiny, Dian took out his token of identity, which was basically a white medal with a shark embedded on it and injected mana into it, then a couple of seconds later a portal appeared on the cave.
"I'll go in first, brother Belliel can enter once I have made sure that there is no one else in the inventory", said Dian as he jumped into the portal.
Agrak didn't pay much attention to Dian's words, the moment the shark guy was gone, he looked at his surroundings as if he was trying to burn this place into his memory, Daimon knew it pretty well, since till the last detail of this area was presented to him as a result of that.
A moment later, Daimon saw the Nethereal tap the fingernail of his left thumb with his index finger, the result was that a transparent film of some kind detached from his nail, landing on a random rock near the cave.
Then a new "perspective" appeared in front of Daimon's eyes, it was as if he had grown a second set of eyes, the effect was similar to dividing the screen when playing a videogame back at earth, this new secondary point of view was linked to whatever Agrak detached from his nail.
There was no sound this time though, just image, this was probably a treasure that complemented the one that Agrak used to spy the conversation among the three leaders after he left the meeting room.
Daimon couldn't help but softly snort, even after Dian entered the inventory, he left the mirror activated so that Agrak would be invisible just in case, it was obvious that the shark guy was utterly cautious and yet, the Nethereal casually sent that thing outside of the protected area without a second thought.
'I guess, those three were right on the desire of corrupted gains that these Belliel guys have', concluded Daimon.
The portal on the cave suddenly became active once again and then, Dian's voice could be heard inside the bubble.
"Everything is ready brother Belliel, don't leave the bubble until you have crossed the portal just in case".
And with those words, the scenery changed once again, from the open dark night that surrounded the entrance of the cave, to a perfectly illuminated and surprisingly large, warehouse of some kind.
From the moment when Daimon heard the Nethereals referring to Ophelia and the others as "Northern Sea's Army", he realized that despite both forces coming from whatever a "Stellar Kingdom" is, the way they are organized is quite different.
On one side the Nethereals appear to be a fully aristocratic society, where nobles decide everything, while the people from the Northern Sea is more a mix with nobility having privileges and authority but military to keep them in check.
The previous is not what caught Daimon's interest, but the fact that those two models perfectly match with the way how the Immortal and Black Marsh galaxies rule as well as the White Fang and Blue-Sky galaxies, respectively.
'A racial trait, a coincidence or…', thought Daimon before putting the matter at the back of his head, back at the memory Dian finally deactivated the mirror and the bubble around Agrak dissipated the next second.
Speaking of the Nethereal, Agrak looked like a kid in a candy shop, he looked in all directions, analyzing the different perfectly ordered materials that were positioned in the countless shelves and racks.
"I don't want to be annoying, but even with my authority at most we'll have fifteen minutes without anyone coming to check on the inventory", said Dian.
"We won't need that much time, take me to the most valuable things in this place", greedily said Agrak.
Before Dian could say anything, Daimon suddenly felt an interestingly familiar sensation coming from afar, for the first time he could "see" something that Agrak couldn't, at least not as of current which made him remember a certain thing that Agrak mentioned before he tried to escape after he lost the game.
"Fine, follow me, the things at the core of this place are at least one tier above the other materials, but I can only take out a few, in exchange you can take as much as you want of the surrounding shelves", said Dian, making Agrak greedily nod in approbation.
Dian then guided Agrak to the center of the warehouse, where a small metal rack contained a few things, three on the center as well as some storage rings surrounding the main treasures.
"From left to right, there are two a spare King rank power sources, taken from my own spaceship during the travel towards this disgusting place, then there is an extra set of King rank battle armor which was badly crafted and for some stupid reason can't be used by any of us and last but not least a Red Moon potion an alchemic product capable of increasing one's overall strength by 30% without any side effect, as the potion will heal you once the effect has ended, the problem is that it can only be used once in a thousand years, which reminds me that those three should have one each".
Agrak's mouth was drooling at the sight of those three treasures, so he didn't care to wait until Dian explained what was inside the rings, he immediately pointed at the first object, which was a hand sized blue sphere with countless runes engraved into it and contained two shinning crystals.
"I want the power sources, I hope brother Dian doesn't take it personal, but with that extra power, we can increase the strength of my flagship so that it can equal the ones of those three, just in case".
Dian slightly gritted his teeth, but ultimately, he nodded and then used his token of identity to open the rack to then take the sphere and throw it to Agrak.
The Nethereal happily caught the sphere to observe it, but then not even a fraction of a second later, a heavy stream of blue light rained down from above.
"Damn it…!".
"Boooooom!".
A loud curse as well as deafening explosion echoed through the whole nearby area, for Daimon everything went blue for a moment, since he could only see what Agrak saw, the Nethereal was crushed against the ground so hard that his body was forced into the hard stone tiles.
By the time the explosion ended, the result was revealed, half of the warehouse was actually gone, the portal collapsed and everything was pulled back to the real space that existed inside the cave, needless to say but everything was a mess, the racks and shelves were laying on the ground here and there, with the exception of the central rack which was perfectly fine.
"How interesting, I went out to breath some fresh air and ended up catching two disgusting rats, a dark one and a white one", a cold yet mellow voice forced the dust to dispel on the spot, what followed was a huge pressure which make the atmosphere itself tremble.
"YOU, CRAZY BITCH!", two enraged voices in unison came in response as well as two different pressures that clashed against the first one.
"Crack!", the ground shattered and the wind howled as a result of the mana clash between the three present people.
At the same time, the whole island came to life as alarms rang from all over the place, Dian and Agrak who were both in miserable states raised from the ground to face the newcomer, a person that Daimon knew pretty well, since she was technically living on a ring inside his hand, at least her soul was.
"Vallmery, you crazy woman, you actually vaporized half of this vault just to land an attack on me!", shouted Dian to which Ophelia smirked in response.
"And to recover what you stole from my central vault", she said, her words forced Agrak who until a second ago was looking daggers at Ophelia, to change his focus to his right hand just to notice it was completely gone, the wound was seared which might be why he didn't feel the pain until now, Dian was actually worse, his whole left leg was gone.
"Aghhhhhh!", a lung-tearing scream escaped from Agrak's mouth, without caring about anything else, he crushed the silver gem incrusted on the buckle of his belt and then a loud glass breaking sound could be heard coming from above as the spaceship from which Daimon came out earlier, appeared on the sky.
"What the hell is going on!", three angered voices came from below the spaceship, apparently the three leading Nethereals were forced out of it.
"Enemies, all the forces attack!", with Ophelia's order, countless arrays came to life and rays of energy flew towards the spaceship and the three leading Nethereals.
"Damn it!", the three Nethereals immediately tried to return into the spaceship just to realize they weren't allowed to, so they had no option but to deploy a barrier mad with their mana to resist the rain of attacks, that being said, they also turned around and fled as fast as they could, they were sure that they could eliminate all the arrays and wipe out the enemy soldiers.
The problem is that this island is only one of the three main ones of the Northern Sea Army and the reinforces will arrive in time, if they stayed even a second too late, they might have to stay forever and Agrak casually threw them in without any warn, they weren't even using their armor as a proof of it.
"Brother Dian!", following Agrak's words, the spaceship launched a yellow tube of light that surrounded Agrak and Dian dragging them towards it.
"Heh, after calling me using such a badly crafted spying treasure you want to leave, dream on!", said Ophelia, which made Dian's bloodshot eyes glare at Agrak.
Agrak clicked his tongue in response, now that the cat was out of the back and since he used those three as a smokescreen, he needed someone to blame and judging by Dian's gaze, Agrak knew who will be taking that role, there is also the fact that a huge sensation of fear suddenly invaded his heart.
"Looks like we'll part ways here brother Dian, good luck", with those words, Agrak somehow made the tube of light expulse Dian, at the same time the speed at which he was being dragged towards the spaceship, increased.
"Agrak you fucking bastard, I'll get you for this!", shouted Dian only for him to be drowned into a stream of blue light, that came from below, he turned into a charred corpse that was then further destroyed inside that blue stream until it was completely vaporized.
'Just as Erin said, an incompetent ally is worse than a cunning enemy', thought Daimon seeing the result.
The previous took long to explain but happened in a matter of seconds, Agrak just arrived at his spaceship when the previous attack completely dissipated, revealing an Ophelia whose gaze could kill.
A moment ago, she received a message that third part of her spaceship crumbled apart, including the living area where all the non-combatant staff lived, as well as the infirmary and even the barracks where the low ranked soldiers were stationed, apparently Dian activated the traps he had set previously, in a rush, he originally was going to use them to threat Ophelia, but since his life was in danger he didn't hesitate to go all out in a try to divert her attention.
Unfortunately, Ophelia steeled her heart and instead of grieving the death of her subordinates, she decided to avenge them which is why not only she sacrificed her own weapon a pair of gloves that were now useless and also added a forbidden spell in a try to kill those two, but Dian was thrown out and used as a meat shield, the protective treasures in his body couldn't save him, but he blocked most of the attack.
"Damn it, she is crazy, get me out of here!", shouted Agrak seeing Ophelia charging her attack once again.
The angered Ophelia saw explosions coming from afar and realized that an all-out battle had exploded between the two sides, probably the other two commanders had intercepted those three and were now fighting against them.
"Where do you think you are going!", she shouted, the spaceship which was about to flash away was hold right in place by a huge hand made out of pure mana that actually came from above the sky, Neptune is already a huge planet itself, these spaceships that Daimon just got to know were around the size of a small country, while even the fortresses were at most the size of a city but that hand… was around five times the size of Agrak's spaceship.
Inside the spaceship while Daimon was in awe at the sight that appeared in front of him, Agrak jumped from his seat at the captain's cabin.
"Crazy, she is goddamn crazy, drawing power from the source used for a King grade spaceship to temporarily boost her realm, that thing is not supposed to be used by living beings!", he screamed as he saw the giant hand starting to crush his precious spaceship.
In a last try Daimon saw Agrak using all sort of life saving means, which included one use spatial scrolls to open a portal to escape, as well as some kind of barriers, but everything was futile, the space itself was restricted and the barriers crumbled as fast as they appeared and then after taking one last glance at Agrak's despair filled face before his body exploded into a bloody paste, which only left a black core with a bloody treasure trove that shone in the last second, allowing the thing to escape, everything went dark.
That was the end of the memory, then some plain information appeared in his mind, but there was no "movie" being played this time, apparently most of the capacity of the existence stolen by Evangeline was used to retrieve that long and pretty detailed memory.
As for the rest of the things he made Agrak remember which were what he was more interested in knowing, they appeared as walls of text in Daimon's mind, but right now he didn't take the time to pay attention to them, because he was still amazed at what happened a moment ago.
While the size of the attack used by Ophelia in that last moment was not bigger than what a Maximum Stellar ranked can do, considering those guys can obliterate a small sized planet if they go all out, the sensation was as different as heaven and earth, Daimon who experienced it through Agrak's eyes was still immersed in that "feeling".
'It's not the first time I felt something like that, but where and when did I…", Daimon who was lost in his thoughts was returned to the real world when he felt his body who was floating inside the dimensional tunnel being shook all of a sudden.
Daimon's eyes in the real world opened just for him to see a dark vortex facing his right, he could feel a certain attraction from it, just like how he was guided to where Marlene was.
"I guess this is my next stop", he mumbled as he jumped into the black vortex, at the same time a certain administrator inside of Daimon's mind giggled.
'As expected of my host, a mere imitation recreated through the system he has managed to get on track by himself~'.
With that sole thought, the blurred figure of Evangeline closed her eyes and fell asleep.