At that moment, Abium suddenly overheard a discussion between Margery and Former King Lucius.
"Do you have any guess about the enemy's motive, Father? What is he after?" Margery asked.
"Hmm, I think the enemy is after a Stone Tablet. I don't know what's in that stone tablet, but it should be something precious."
'Stone tablet, huh? What's so special about it?' Abium was startled a little and asked.
'Azolla, do you know anything about the stone tablets?'
'Stone tablets are mostly used for passing down information to the future generation. Some stone tablets may contain scripts of an unknown language while a few ancient ones even contain mysterious power in the form of divine words. Wait. The snake demon... Could it be a scheme of a Demon Lord? Now that I think about it, Snake Demons are still ruled by Demon Princess Scylla, right?' Azolla asked herself. After a short pause, she continued with a solemn tone.
'Hmm, that snake demon princess would never allow one of her elite soldiers to enter a mortal plane for silly reasons.' Her reply startled him.
'Demon lord? Demon Princess?' Abium had heard of those names in the past. The chaos invasion was organized by three demon lords and one devil king.
And one of the demon Lords was Sith, also called the Evil Goddess of Snakes. Although Demon Lord Sith and other Demon Lord never entered the Easica Plane in the past, they still managed to topple the whole plane into ruins in just twenty years.
'But how did you know the enemy is a demon lord's elite soldier?' Abium couldn't help but ask.
'I made a guess when I saw the divinity shard which you picked up earlier, lad.'
'You mean it is Snake Demon Lord's divine shard?' Abium asked with a frown.
'Yes. Only Sith possessed the domain of Madness and controls the territory of snakes to a large extent.' Azolla said in his mind.
'Wait... The dimensional lock spell. There is a possibility that she might be monitoring our movement, right?' Abium asked and looked at the dark starry sky.
'It's possible, kid. I am surprised you still keep a calm face in this situation. But don't worry. Even if she monitors what is happening here from the Abyss, she doesn't have any authority here.' Azolla said.
Yes, he almost forgot that the Gods were protecting this plane.
'So, can you guess the strength of this demon?'
'That's a tough question. Although that snake's strength is restricted here because of planar suppression, it will still be a difficult battle. From my guess, its physical stats must be around 10 to 20. As for its bloodline spells, they should be around the second-tier level.' Abium's face changed as he heard those words.
Still, he returned to his calm attitude a second later, pointed his finger at the former king Lucius and asked.
'What about him?'
The next instant, a notification icon popped in front of his eyes and showed his strength, agility, and vitality attributes as 10.4, 11.0, and 10.5.
'It seems he is the only person who has the strength to even stand against that demon snake, huh?' Abium nodded his head in understanding.
'Nah. Even if he is a seventh-tier warrior, he is still a mortal, lad. The best he can do is use stall the snake demon from escaping for a minute or two. But if the snake demon decided to go all out, he might even die.' Abium listened to Azolla's words and soon frowned.
Instantly, he looked ahead and soon locked his gaze on the opposite side metallic gate.
A second later, a loud metallic noise echoed from the front and caused everyone to tense up.
Slowly, Helena and other elite soldiers gripped their weapons and gulped down their salivas due to an unknown fear.
'BAM.'
The metal gate began to open.
"HISS!" "***** ******** *******"
A hissing sound came from the front, followed by an eerie whisper of a young woman.
Shortly, everyone noticed a 3 meters long red-colored snake slithered out of the gloomy dark passage and soon reached the Royal Garden. Its skin appeared reddish-black with patterns of white skulls and looked eerie.
The snake then raised its head and peered at all of them with interest.
As everyone was looking at the snake in puzzlement, it began to enlarge and formed into a humanoid figure. It had the head of a cobra head, strange yellowish eyes, four arms, two monstrous legs, and it even wore a necklace of three skulls around its neck. It appeared to be around 3 meters tall and wore strange leather armor to cover its scale-like body.
'Elite Snake demon, huh?' Abium instantly touched his space ring and took out his sword.
'It's a Greater Demon, kid. Be careful of its eyes. It can confuse your mind with a simple glance.'
Azolla's warning sound echoed inside his mind.
At that moment, Lily also showed a stiff face and spoke.
"That's the snake I saw earlier. Its name is Susur. But I didn't know it could transform into a monster like this."
Although the humanoid snake only transformed into a humanoid figure and didn't even glance at them, many elite knights took a step back subconsciously and breathed heavily.
The mere presence of the demonic creature gave everyone fear and chill.
A second later, the greater demon named Susur suddenly hovered up in the air, stopped after reaching the height of one meter, and sent a spiritual wave in every direction.
At that moment, the communication rune circle on Abium's robe flickered.
'Oh? Connection restoried?' A flash of surprise appeared on Abium's face.
He hurriedly touched the rune circle with his right hand and soon attended the call from the other side.
"Abium, can you hear me?" A middle-aged man's voice came from the other side.
Abium instantly recognized the voice and spoke in a hurry.
"Yes, Teacher."
"Good. Do you still remember Lady Tabitha? It's that old hag you met in the auction house." Zivior spoke from the other side.
"Who are you calling old hag, bastard? I am two years younger than you." Another voice echoed.
Without minding the shout of Tabitha, Zivior quietly shifted the topic and spoke solemnly.
"Listen carefully, Abium. We haven't broken the dimension lock spell yet. But thankfully, Tabitha is still in the Royal Capital and is on her way to the Royal Palace building. Until she arrives, try your best and stop the demon from killing any Royal Family members. It should be your main duty."
"Teacher, I don't think I could hold off against that demon-"
Before he could finish the sentence, a strange hissing voice came from the shining rune circle, followed by an eerie silence.
The signal got cut off.
But unlike before, he at least knew what he had to do next.
'I've to stop the demon, huh? What a reckless mission.'
Meanwhile, the snake looked around slowly and split its eerie black tongue out.
A second later, the snake demon shifted its gaze towards Lucius and others, opened its mouth, and spoke.
"****** ****** ****." Unfortunately, no one was about to understand its words and remained standing there with puzzled expressions on their faces.
Annoyed by everyone's silence, the snake demon raised one of its eerie black claw-like hands, clenched its claws tighter, and punched the air.
'Crack!'
Space itself began to crack and soon formed into an empty black void. Then, the snake demon moved one of its right hands, put it into the empty spatial void, and took out something from it.
A second later, a large black broadsword appeared in front of everyone's eyes.
'It should be an artifact.' Azolla spoke in his mind.
Meanwhile, Abium activated the spiritual scan ability, quickly sent a minute spiritual wave towards the demonic snake creature and the sword, and scanned them.
Soon, two blue notifications popped up in front of his eyes.
One notification contained information about the broadsword, while the other had the snake demon's status.
'Hmm? That sword is a high-tier artifact like my sword? Moreover, a cursed one.' A grim look appeared on his face.
Then, he shifted his gaze towards the other notification and noticed that the creature's physical stats were around 13 points.
'Could they able to hold this demon till Tabitha arrives?' He doesn't know.
'But there is no way in hell I'm going to battle this demon alone!' He knew how hard it was to face a greater demon.
In truth, he faced a greater demon named Kolgath in the past and even died at the end.
So, a strange fear started to creep into his mind.
In the meantime, a different thought ran through Helena's mind.
'What the hell is this thing? No one said we are going to battle this demon!'
She secretly cursed at the Baron, who proudly said, 'We are the protectors of this kingdom. We are going after his Majesty to find out the real enemy.'
She doesn't even know where Abium ran off to and thought it would be better if he were around.
But soon, she shook her head.
'Even if he is here, the result will be the same.' Her eyes slowly moved towards the snake demon.
'Focus! I need to focus right now. Otherwise, I might die here.'
While she was in muse, the former king Lucius suddenly sent his fire elemental energy into his sword and soon created a reddish aura around it.