A Demon's Journey

After Sargan had left, Azaroth pulled out those three drops of his Blood Essence.

This Blood Essence was useful to him because it contained the power of a Demon Emperor. It would massively help his Heavenly Demon Transformation Method and he might even reach the 3rd Layer with it straight away.

After reaching the third layer, his recovery speed and his Ardor absorption would massively increase.

Moreover, his Mystic Eyes of Perception might also get some abilities of the Evil Eyes.

That petrification skill would be very useful in a fight. It would be able to inhibit the movement of someone even stronger than him so he could use it as the last resort.

The Mystic Eyes of Perception already possessed a mild hypnosis effect so he didn't really want that skill.

The three drops of blood essence entered Azaroth's body through his forehead.

Azaroth sensed raging demonic energy within his veins. It seemed as if it was struggling with all its power to get out of his body.

Holy Ardor flared up in Azaroth's body as a safety measure and was about to extinguish the three drops of Blood Essence.

However, Azaroth immediately used a lot of Humanely Ardor and suppressed the Holy Ardor.

The Raging Demonic Ardor was slowly but surely fusing with his blood.

Around this time, Azaroth felt massive pain in his eyes.

As he felt some liquid on his face and wiped it, he later saw that it was his blood.

Blood was squeezing out of his eyes and then Azaroth felt another burst of pain in his eyes.

He felt his eyes were transforming. Even though it was a slight transformation and not a complete evolution, it didn't hurt any less though.

His Heavenly Demon Physique immediately broke through after he completely fused with those three drops of the Blood Essence.

He was now at the Third Stage of the Heavenly Demon Transformation Method.

His Demonic Ardor had also grown stronger.

After an hour, the fusion was complete and stable.

Azaroth finally opened his eyes and sighed out 'I failed to get the petrification skill and Sargan's blood essence merely unlocked the hypnosis ability of the Mystic Eyes of Perception.'

The hypnosis ability granted by his Mystic Eyes of Perception wasn't as strong as Sargan's hypnotic eyes. It only worked on those equal to him or weaker than him spiritually.

However, it did have its own pros. Unless someone checked up on that person's spirit, nobody would find out that the target had been hypnotized.

'I guess I have more options now.'

Although this skill was useless in battle, it had quite some use in his daily life.

And as he was thinking about who he should hypnotize first, he remembered a piece of certain information he heard from Tronte.

A devilish smile appeared on his lips as he walked out of his chambers.

~~

Some distance away from the Rhodes Estate was another large mansion. At a glance, it was even larger than the Rhodes Estate.

This was none other than the Mansion where Jonas Rhodes lived along with his wives and concubines.

The Rhodes Estate could be considered a mansion where the important meeting took place while this Mansion was his personal abode.

Currently, Azaroth was moving towards this abode very silently. The clothes he was wearing looked very similar to the clothes worn by the members of the Silent Death Organization.

He had his reasons for wearing such clothes. If someone caught sight of him, their first suspicion should be the members of the Silent Death Organization.

On the surface, Azaroth had no real enmity with the Silent Death Organization so it would be next to impossible to even consider him as a suspect.

If the higher-ups of the Silent Death Organization knew just what Azaroth was thinking, their heads would explode with anger.

Azaroth soon reached the perimeter of the mansion. The entire place was swarming with guards, servants, and other individuals.

'I need to keep my timing perfect.'

Using his sensing skill, Azaroth easily passed the guards outside the walls. He soon climbed the walls when he sensed that nobody was nearby who could see him.

After climbing the walls, he sensed the presence of the nearest guard to his position. It seemed as though the guard was making patrolling, he was moving from the left direction.

Azaroth threw the stone with all his might and the stone struck the wall behind that guard. After having thrown the stone, he immediately jumped down on the ground.

His timing was perfect because just as his feet touched the ground, the stone created a loud sound, catching the attention of that guard.

Azaroth had chosen to jump from this direction because the guards were relatively thin around here and the second reason was that this was the spot nearest to his target.

He could faintly sense the presence of the poison. The Twin Elemental: Fire and Ice Poison!

It was on the second floor of this building just ahead of him.

The question was, how he should get inside this building. If he went into the building from the ground floor, a guard or a maid might see him. Azaroth would have to silence them which would further create another big scene.

Azaroth then focused on his sensing skill and found that there were only two individuals in the room the woman was staying.

That woman was suffering Fire and Ice Poison while the other was completely cure.

'One of them is Tiana Rhodes while the other must be her attendant.'

Azaroth concluded quickly and thought of his next action. He focused his vision on the window attached to that room.

The wind gust suddenly focused on that room and forced it open.

From a glance though, it appeared as if the wind strongly blew and had opened the window. It was a completely natural phenomenon…

In the next second, Azaroth took his highest jump and entered Tiana Rhodes' room silently.

However, this skill was pretty much useless because the woman next to Tiana Rhodes saw him enter and her eyes widened.

She opened her mouth and before she could even let out a squeal, Azaroth had grabbed her throat tightly.

As that woman looked into his terrifying purple eyes, she lost consciousness.

Azaroth released her throat and then turned towards the other woman in the room. Her body laid on a comfortable bed and it didn't seem as if she had noticed Azaroth entering her room.

Her eyes were closed and her palms had morphed into fists that tightly held the bedsheets.

Her spirit and physique were experiencing unbearable pain.

She was tall, had a pair of beautiful eyebrows, single-edged eyelids, a slim waist, a towering chest, and a pair of slender legs. Her entire person radiated seduction and charm.

Jonas had fallen in love with this woman, and Azaroth could see why. She was just 21, but her enticing body and matured aura were hard to resist. Many men would want to dominate her or show off their authority in front of her.

And right now, this woman was quivering because of utter pain.

Azaroth moved forward and touched her forehead.

He was surprised when he felt the energy within Tiana trying to freeze his Ardor. However, it was far too weak and he easily suppressed it.

'I see… This woman possesses the Three Yin Physique that can naturally gather Ardor from nature and create Ice. My deduction was wrong. This wasn't a Fire and Ice Poison. Instead, she was fed merely a Flame Poison. However, once the Flame Poison came in contact with the Ice in her meridians, it flared up her physique leading to these disastrous circumstances.'

The Flame Poison was quite special as it latched onto Tiana's energy center and regain its strength. Tiana had managed to survive not just because of Jonas' energy injected into her but also because of the Ice in her body.

Even though solving such a situation would be quite challenging for even a 5 Star Alchemist, Azaroth just released a hint of Heavenly Flames. The Golden Flame entered Tiana's body and effortlessly suppressed the Three Yin Physique and the Flame Poison.

After what could be considered an eternity, Tiana's face eased up. She was relieved as she hardly felt pain anymore.

It was at that moment she felt someone's hand touching her skin. It was someone's palm over her forest. She was loving this touch because her pain lessened after she felt it.

She wasn't really worried about the identity of the person. As far as she knew, either it was her maid Cassie or some physician hired by Jonas.

But when she opened her eyes, she was definitely not expecting to see a young and handsome man.

Moreover, it was a man who seemed somewhat familiar to her but she couldn't place her finger on it.

"It seems I was successful in suppressing your poison." Azaroth softly spoke to Tiana.

Tiana found his gentle voice very pleasing to her ears.

"Huh? Yes." Tiana though soon regained her senses and then asked him while raising her eyebrows, "Um. Who are you?"

Azaroth had already considered which identity he was going to reveal to this woman.

"I am Edwin Rhodes. You should know me as one of Jonas' children." Azaroth spoke those words calmly.

Tiana frowned slightly as she heard Azaroth's words. He was one of Jonas' sons meant he was one generation lower than her. However, the devious glint and that smile on Azaroth's face made her anxious while facing him.

Tiana looked around for her maid. And was surprised to see her maid fallen on the ground.

The red marks on her neck showed that she had been strangled forcefully.

Azaroth naturally noticed that Tiana saw the condition of the woman in the room.

Tiana spoke with disbelief evident in her voice, "You managed to sneak into my room?!"

"It seems that you understand the situation. Not bad." Azaroth affirmed by speaking those words.

"G-" Before she could even start speaking, Azaroth recalled his Golden Flames, and the Flame poison in Tiana's body flared up.

"Shouting for help? That was a bad move." Azaroth spoke with a sneer as he initiated the flame poison's outburst.

Since the Flame Poison and the Three Yin Physique had been suppressed forcefully, their outburst was more terrifying than before.

Consequently, the pain was also much greater.

Tiana felt as if half of her body was burning with raging flames while the other half was freezing her to death.

And she suffered while these two elements battled.

Before she could even scream out due to pain, Azaroth placed one hand over her mouth and completely covered it.

Azaroth wasn't worried that anyone would enter her room because of these screams.

"You should better understand your situation now. Isn't that right, Tiana?" Once again, his voice was gentle, but as Tiana heard it, she felt as if Azaroth was looking at her with a sneer.

Soon, Azaroth slowly released his hold over her mouth to let her speak.

"…Y…Yes. Please… Please stop this pain." Tiana begged with tears leaking down her face.

"A pity though. The sight of you writhing in pain is also quite lovely." Those words just made her aware of the sadistic nature of this man.

But still, the Golden Flames appeared and suppressed the Flame Poison along with her Three Yin Physique.

"…Thank you…" Tiana didn't know what else to say.

"Alright. Now I will begin to explain my intention to come here."

Tiana didn't know why but she gulped nervously as she heard Azaroth's serious voice.