The Devil Does Not Need to Be Defeated

Chapter 262: Cant You Do It Lighter?

"You're saying that you're pursuing the Demon Lord Spawn?

Within a certain corner of the canyon, Shien, who was still holding Airi in his arms, raised an eyebrow at the information that Jacinta revealed.

"So that's how it is. You've already found it huh?"

Airi's eyes narrowed, her expression cold.

Jacinta stood before the two of them. His gaze would continue to occasionally shift to Airi over in Shien's arms. As he saw his little master's cold expression, the difficult looking smile on his face turned even more so.

Jace and Liece, standing behind Jacinta on the other hand had completely lost all of the challenging attitude from the previous time. All that's let in them is fear, to the point they didn't even dare to breath too loudly. They just looked that pitiful and helpless.

However, it was the three of them who managed to grasp the true vital points of this incident.

According to them, after they arrived within the canyon, they completely ignored all the refining demons and showed no interest toward any of the human factions involved in this Demon Refining ritual here. Instead, they had focused on the Demon Lord Spawn at the center of the ritual from the beginning.

"The Demon Refining ritual is a magic ritual that uses the Demon Lord Spawn as the source. So long as the Spawn is around, the ritual can be set off anywhere, no preparations or steps necessary."

"One can say that the Demo Lord Spawn is the core of the Demon Refining ritual, as well as its single point of failure."

"Thus, to stop this ritual, the only way is to slay the Demo Lord Spawn that's acting as the core. Otherwise, baring the omnipotent Highest God Omnis personally intervening, no one, not even the three great goddesses or the six great Demon Lords will be able to stop this ritual."

That's how Jacinta described it.

Thus, his objective was obvious from the start, and that is to find the Demon Lord Spawn and kill it.

When they've dealt with the Spawn, the ritual will automatically stop, and they can take their time to deal with anything else after.

Thus, Jacinta's group's strategy here as to avoid prolonged combat, ignore all other matters, and only simple-mindedly pursue the Demon Lord Spawn and root it out.

This wasn't something simple or easy though.

"Both the Demon Lord Original and its spawns both have a certain skill, and that was the ability to shift between the physical and immaterial. They have no true physical form, but nor are they truly immaterial beings. Instead, they're half physical, half immaterial beings in between reality and the phantasmal." Jacinta explained.

"Until the final refining demon that's intended as the sacrifice is born, the Demon Lord Spawn that hasn't devoured it is very weak. However, it will thus stay in its half immaterial form and hide within the area covered by the ritual and move about in stealth. It's only when the final refining demon that's supposed to be its sacrifice is born that it will show itself, devour the sacrifice, and grow up to become something that can be used to help build up its original."

Jacinta's words reminded Shien of the Demon Lord Spawn that he encountered previously.

True enough. It was only when the presences of all the demonic beasts on the mountain had vanished that it finally appeared to attack him and Lucy.

It's also indeed only half material. When it's in between reality and phantasm, not even [Magic Sword] was able to slay it. It was even able to instantly recover from any damage that was done to it, just like a mirage, both there and not.

If not for the fact that the unsealed Holy Sword is a divine weapon capable of slaying even the Demon King and has natural anti-demon and demonic beast properties, then even if they could defeat it, they'd still be unlikely to be able to kill it, right?

Thankfully though, the one to encounter the Demon Lord Spawn back then was Shien and Lucy, who are Heroes wielding Holy Swords. Otherwise, anyone else would have been slowly died to attrition against that unkillable, dragon breath breathing, level 90 Demon Lord Spawn.

Thus, even before the Demon Lord Spawn has devoured the last refining demon and sacrifice and thus matured, its special properties mean that it can't be easily dealt with.

It's also very difficult to try to find it. Since it's something between the physical and immaterial, they're very hard to detect by their presence or magic power. When hidden, they're extremely hard to locate for normal people.

Shien even remember that it was that way back when he and Lucy were looking for it. It was only when the Spawn burrowed up from the ground and was about to attack them that they finally managed to detect its presence and thus was able to barely dodge in time.

Putting Lucy aside, Shien has two max level detection skills. He also has the magic staff's detection and alarm effects in action, but even so, he was only able to barely detect the enemy's attack in time. That in and of itself showed just what a problem it is.

Thus, Jacinta's group of three were pursuing the Demon Lord Spawn all this time and, thanks to some minor clues that normal people are completely incapable of noticing, they finally more or less caught the trail of the Demon Lord Spawn.

"Then, as we followed the trail, we ended up here and meeting… The two of you…"

Jacinta said that while carefully glancing at Airi again.

Airi however didn't even bother looking his way. She just continued to look unfeeling as before.

Jacinta felt rather helpless at that.

It's because he really just couldn't read just what his little master is thinking.

Although Jacinta does more or less somewhat understands Airi, and he knows that she rarely involves herself in troublesome matters. However, that doesn't mean she doesn't have any thoughts or opinions.

If it was some extremely minor things, then his little master won't bother caring at all. Even if she does encounter it, she'll just act like she's doing now and just listen from the side without showing any emotions without speaking a word.

However, this isn't a minor matter at all here.

The Demon Lord Spawn and the Demon Refining ritual is a secret of the demon race. It's also a cancer and taboo that all demons want to utterly suppress.

In the face of such a matter, not even his little master could possibly act completely uncaring.

If she had decided to completely not intervene in this matter and have left it all for him to handle, then it might be reasonable for her to act so uncaring.

However, she had already shown up here, and yet she's still not speaking a word like that. This can only mean one thing.

And that thing is that she had decided to grant all authority for this matter to the man who's dragging her along without a care.

In other words, his little master was handing the lead to the human in front of them.

(… If this were to get back to the demon world, it will seriously end up a major commotion.)

Never mind the demon race, even his little master's five older sisters will probably end up moved to action, right?

As he thought that, Jacinta took Shien even more seriously.

Before, Jacinta had already slightly detected that Shien is unusual.

However, at that time, he never considered Shein a threat. He was at most interested, that's all.

But now, Jacinta no longer dared to face Shien with such an attitude anymore.

This is an existence capable of getting his little master to act nice and obedient after all.

Although it's unknown just how he did it, but just that point alone was enough to skyrocket his status to the point where even someone of Jacinta's level has to act cautiously around.

Plus…

(It's not just the Treasure of the Kingdom. For even master to pay so much attention and interest in him…)

Jacinta for one refuses to believe that there's no reason for that.

Thus…

(This human is definitely far more formidable than I or anyone else had imagined.)

For that reason, Jacinta was not taking Shien completely seriously.

Thus, Jacinta ended up saying a bit more.

"Originally, the Demon Refining ritual and the Seventh Demon Lord is a shame that we of the demon race are unwilling to let the other races know of, so we've sealed up all information on this subject all this time, not allowing the gods or mortals to know of it."

"And thankfully, the Demon Refining ritual has only appeared in the demon world all this time, never once showing up in the mortal world. That's why were were able to successfully lock down this information."

"But this time, since Sir already knows the secret of us demons, I'd like to know just what your stance is on it."

Jacinta stared straight at Shien and questioned word by word.

"Can you tell me just what Sir is doing here?"

Those serious words changed the atmosphere some.

Shien raised his eyebrows again.

Then…

"Is your lordship worried about something?"

Jacinta spoke half playfully.

"Don't worry, on this matter at least, I'm on your side. Or rather, on this little girl's side."

As he spoke, Shien patted Airi's head.

Seeing Shien patting away at Airi's little head like he's dribbling a ball, Jacinta's face twitched and warped.

Freaking hell, can't you do it lighter?