Supreme Monarch

—In the Ratre Lahoured Region's capital City.

—WaterWays City.

Still gathered in the inner most reaches of the family's castle, the holy sanctums. Was the 14 highest ranking members of the Great Alcar family. Naturally, this included the Great Demon lord himself, Cain Lyra Alcar.

The meeting had been organized by the Pillar of Shadows, Ike Okon Lemande continued on with increased intensity as the ones sitted around the round table voiced their opinions one after the other.

"The question is, what does this new Great Demon Lord intend to do with the power and influence he would gain with his control over the demon king's castle? If he just intends to use it in defending his supposed territory, it won't be a problem in the short term."

The Head of the Magic institute spoke but his thoughts were quickly rebuked by one of the six pillars.

"How could that be? The power he would gain from the castle is far too much just for defense. Also, if this Demon Lord is one of the fallen king's followers and is working with the seven primordials, don't you think he'll hate the Great Five and use the power he gains from the castle to attack us."

"It doesn't matter how this Demon Lord intends to use his military strength. What matters is what we can do about it."

After finally calming down from the shock of learning how this Demon Lord had defeated or rather, sealed the embodiment of a god, Cain's mind finally began to spin again as he spoke calmly and calculating.

His father had been the one who had betrayed the demon king alongside the other Generals of the demon king for straying away from the servitude of the demon god and even he, did not know the true extent of what the demon king had hidden in his castle.

As far as he and everyone here knew, there were countless God-class artifacts hidden in their and from the report that had just read. It looked as though this Ty of a person has managed to find most of them when even his father and the other Great Five Demon Lords could not.

They had read the report of several low level demons fighting on par with demon lord level creatures and the possession of God Class artifacts was the only explanation.

However, to hand over so many God Class artifacts to even the likes of lesser demons and demi-humans and devils. Such atrocities could not be tolerated.

Still, Cain's words was a valid opinion, and the direction of the meeting began to turn.

"Then… can the Golden Circle deal with it? That's the most important thing."

The Golden Circle. They were the Alcar Family's final ace in the hole, a special force unit composed of only demigods. One could think of them as primordial behemoths level fighters, but there was a critical difference between the two, that of their weapons and equipment.

The Alcar family possess a multitude of artifact level weapons and equipment left behind during the mythical age of the dragons and gods. They were ones the items possessed by the demon king but had been rightfully liberated by their ancestor.

While these were not God Class artifacts, they were almost the next best thing. These were items not even the primordials could easily possess.

It was why they had all been nervous after reading the report on the undead war. For sovmany of this new Demon's subordinate to possess such items and equipment pose a great threat to their authority. It instantly raised their evaluation of him from a simple behemoth to another Demon Lord that rivaled the Five.

However, each member of the Golden Circle possessed multiple articles of such high classed gear and had all been carefully butting from theor days of at tge Magic academy.

This was why they the Great Five had only created a single Magic academy in their regions in order to gather the most talented kids in one place where they would be closely watched and recruited.

If even they could not handle a threat like this, then they could still conduct a grand ritual to summon the embodiment of the demon god for his aid but no one wanted to test that theory.

Normally, there was no foe alive that could stand before the embodiment of the demon god even though it only possessed a fraction of the god's true power.

However, learning of how the Grim Reaper had been sealed so easily made them all particularly nervous. They found their own thoughts to be blasphemous but yet, none of them could absolutely refute that idea.

All eyes went to Ike, the organizer of this meeting as they desperately sort out reassurance in their fate.

He chuckled.

Some people smiled in response to his laughter. Their minds seemingly relieved, but those smiles froze on their faces as they heard what he said next:

"It's impossible. I say this as a former head of the Golden Circle; anyone who expects us to face such a Demon Lord with his multitude of God Class artifacts must be an absolute madman. It was already a difficult task to face someone at the same level as a Great Demon Lord on his own much less with the backing of so many demigod level fighters and his multitude of artifacts."

The nature of his smile changed.

"However, it's different for our Lord's vessels."

"Ohh," went the sounds of rejoicing as they all remembered the two ladies Ike was referring to and their hearts fell at ease.

"The two of them should be able to disregard the abilities of those artifacts and deal with the demigods quite easily. Of course, just in case, we still need to give them the best backup we can."

"So it'll be fine with those two."

"Well, that's a relief."

Amidst this jubilation, only Caz went "hmph". Sensing the weighty air of fatigue around him, everyone quietened down and their attention was shifted yet again.

"Ike! You're not telling us everything, are you?"

"Caz, what are you getting at?"

In a flare of denial, one of the other pillars impatiently quarrel Caz for his intentions i hopes that nothing was wrong.

"We the highest level executives of the Alcar family are not subjected to the same laws as everyone else. However, in the presence of the demon god, we are all equals serving under his grace and lying to your colleagues here is a grave offense. If you agree with this, let me ask you one more time: What are you hiding?"

"Caz. What's wrong with you? Why are you saying this?"

"Eddar, I have a question. Why did Little Roland Quiver lock himself away before he had sent over his report?"

The room remained silent as everyone exchanged confused gazes with one another. They had all assumed the same thing but none of them was clueless enough not to understand that there was probably more to this by the mere fact that Caz was bring it up now.

Knowing that nobody could answer that question, he continued to speak.

"He did so out of despair. Or perhaps he must have suffered some sort of shock or backlash. It's true that a force of so many demigod level fighters was concerning. However, the kid's a member of the Golden Circle. Do you really think he would go into hiding just because of that?… Even he is not so irresponsible not to know when an information is important or not. The reason for his delay was because he had saw something that even the Vessels could not beat. This report isn't complete, isn't it?"

Everyone looked at Ike and Caz, their expression somber and a little pale as they slowly shifted their gaze towards the standing Ike.

"..What are you trying to achieve by hiding that point? I trust you. I know you're not the sort of man who would use the Circles for his own gain. But why are you not revealing this?"

Caz continued his line of questioning and Ike smiled at him gently before responding.

"Well done. As expected of you, Caz. I simply wanted to explore the possibilities… then, I'll say it. Agonizing over this problem alone would simply give me an migraine, so I'd be glad to share it with all you gentlemen here."

Ike looked at his seated audience for a moment before speaking again.

"How much do you know of the battle between the Undead army and the Darknar force's — no, between the Undead King and the Great Demon Lord himself?"

The person who answered on their behalf was the Alcar family's Great Demon Lord.

"I heard that the undead king was using a cursed artifact but lost his mind and was controlled by some spiritual entities. If I remember correctly, it was then the surveillance spell were blocked and we had to leave the rest to Roland. It's because of this uncertainty that caused the Great Five to remain passive, thereby silently seeding the Darknar region to this unknow Demon lord."

"And do you know what being possessed the undead king?"

The Great Demon Lord simply shook his head at Ike.

"I don't know. That news has not reached me yet. It should be the same for the rest of you, right? And also why we've been waiting on Little Roland before this meeting was finally organized."

"Yes. None of the scouts we sent to take advantage of the situation had survived the night and our spies in his city are yet to make their second report. So all we hear are rumors of unknown provenance. Most likely being spread around by this Demon Lord's subordinates. It's quite impressive."

"So we need the Circles — this sort of thing is better suited to the Blue Circle than the Yellow Circle, right?"

"Yes, which is why only the commander of the Six Circles — namely, you all — know the truth. All we learned is what little leaked out."

"…I see. Then, release the full, unabridged version of what Little Roland Quiver saw during that battle to us."

After reading the rest of the report, the room was ruled by silence yet again.

Feeling that this could not be allowed to go on, Sai raised a questions.

"I see, I see. …You were afraid our hearts would stop if we saw this first, right?"

"Not really. I'm sure everyone here is capable of surviving without a heart. I was simply afraid that if I opened with this, none of you would believe it."

Sai nodded, unable to refute that.

Indeed, for an unknow behemoth that has only just recently worked his way out of the shadows to posses such power was absurd.

The Grim Reaper incident had been a shock but even still, he had used a sealing tool to aid him and the reaper had been weakened with the help of a devil as well as divine nymph. However, this piece of information was completely ludicrous.