Abium was flabbergasted a bit.
Eventually, he recovered from the shock and noticed that his advanced sword aura began slowly cutting the black aura-coated chain.
But before his sword aura could cut the chain thoroughly, the hair on his back stood up.
'Danger!'
"Blazing shield!" Without hesitation, Abium cast the defense spell on himself.
A moment later, a fire shield covered his whole body and appeared like a forcefield.
At that moment, two more eerie chains popped out of Iskax's chest and attacked him.
Both chains collided with his defensive fire spell with a bang and quickly broke through the flame shield. Fire sparks appeared everywhere as the whole shield started to crack like glasses.
But that was more than enough for Abium to make his next move.
As the Blazing Shield broke into pieces, he suddenly leaped towards Iskax's right side while evading the black chains and aimed his sword at the other snakehead. He then used the advanced sword aura and slashed at its neck area before decapitating its head.
"SHIEEKKKK."
Meanwhile, the demonized opened his mouth and shrieked.
A second later, the snakehead fell on the ground, leaving a deep burnt mark on the sliced area.
But what surprised Abium was that those creepy chains also stopped moving and started to vaporize, leaving only black smoke behind.
'What happened?'
Before Abium could understand the situation, he felt a dense amount of chaotic energy gathering inside Iskax's body and moving towards his head!
'Back off. It's going to use the first-tier spell!' Azolla warned in his mind.
"Take cover!" Abium shouted toward Sara and Lily and tried to teleport back, but it was too late.
At that moment, a three-meter radius gigantic ball of fire appeared in front of the demonized Iskax and moved towards him at an incredible speed.
'No good!' Cursing, he moved his left hand towards his chest and touched the golden badge.
A moment later, a dense amount of wind-elemental energy gathered around Abium and formed into an invisible forcefield.
"BOOM!"
The terrifying fireball collided with the forcefield the next second and exploded, releasing devastating ripples in all directions.
Darkness and red waves spread to the surrounding areas and started to burn anything in their path.
Abium was also thrown back due to the collision and landed two meters away from Iskax.
But thankfully, the 'First-Tier defensive spell managed to block the fire and save him from being burnt.
'Tsk, I need to find his weakness before he kills me.' Although he could escape now, he decided not to waste any opportunity in this life.
'I already have my eye on the divine shard. I can't back down now.' As he muttered inwardly, he turned his attention towards the darkness elemental spell model and cast the [Mirage] spell on himself.
A second later, his figure turned blurry and vanished from the terrace.
'Let's see if I can sneak up on this guy.'
As the fire started to die, Abium stood up slowly in his invisible state and glanced around.
At that moment, he saw two figures with tattered dresses standing a little distance away from him, staring at the humanoid monster in shock and fear.
'They survived?' Abium couldn't help but get surprised.
'Look at the blonde-haired girl, kid. She uses her raw space elemental energy and deflects the heat waves from getting near them. If that earlier spell is aimed at them instead of you, they would've long died by now.' Azolla said.
Abium agreed to her words and quietly shifted his attention towards the demonized Iskax.
With bloodshot eyes, he looked in his direction and then slowly shifted his attention to Sara and Lily.
'He is going after them.' Abium muttered solemnly and decided to utilize this opportunity.
He took a step forward and was about to attack again but suddenly stopped.
At that moment, he saw an eerie red light within Iskax's wounded chest.
'Chaos stone? Is the demonization completed already? No, that shouldn't be possible. I heard it would take more than a day to complete that process. Something is wrong.' A frown appeared on his forehead.
Abium then ran towards Iskax at an incredible speed and got much closer to him in mere two seconds.
Then, he imbued mana into his sword, formed an advanced sword aura around his sword edges, and thrust it towards the chest area.
The sword tip tore through the air, entered deep into the chest, and reached the chaos core.
In a split second, the sword tip broke the chaos stone and penetrated deep into his body.
"ARGHHHHH!" A high-pitched noise came out of Iskax's mouth the next second, causing the building to shake.
Without waiting for Iskax to regain his senses, Abium pulled his sword, made a swift slash at his neck, and decapitated the dead.
Dark blood splattered everywhere and corroded the floor itself.
Then, the headless body and the decapitated head fell slowly along with a loud thud, leaving the area in silence.
Following that, the demonized body started to shrink and soon returned to a human-sized one.
A human body with two strange snake heads appeared before Abium's eyes within a few seconds.
After looking deeply at the human body, Abium shifted his gaze towards the chest region and took out a broken reddish-black core from inside.
But as he placed the chaos stone on his plan, it slowly began to break into multiple pieces and disappeared slowly, leaving a small white metal-like thing behind.
'What is this?' Abium stared at it deeply and inspected it.
[Item: Shard of Madness.]
'It's the broken piece of divinity, lad. To walk the path of Divine, you must collect nine more Divine Shards from the same domain and create a pure Madness Divinity. Even I don't know much about the Divine Path. But worry not. I will help you to exchange this shard with something else later.'
'Oh? That's nice.' He nodded and put it inside the space ring.
Then, he turned his gaze towards Sara and Lily, raised his Sword of Wrath, and pointed the sword tip in their direction.
"Why did you assassinate King Sewallus, Miss Sara?" Abium asked in a cold tone.
Meanwhile, Lily took a step forward while raising her sword and spoke.
"We had no choice but to obey Iskax's order due to the slave mark on our foreheads, Mister. But we are free now."
"I'm not asking about your situation." A sharp voice came out of Abium, causing Lily and Sara to flinch in surprise.
"What I want to know is why Iskax plotted this assassination. What is his relationship with Caarth Demon? Why did he kill King Sewallus at that particular moment?" Abium asked and looked at the crowd of people standing below the building.
Meanwhile, Sara let out a deep sigh and started explaining to him about the strange red snake, the reason for her assassination, the unique dagger, and so on.
"His master, Susur, is after something in the royal treasury, Mister. But getting to the Royal Treasury isn't an easy matter. Only two people in this Kingdom have the authority to open the Royal Treasury right now-"
Before she could finish her sentence, Abium gave her a stern look and interrupted her.
"One is Former King Lucius, and the other is Late King Sewallus, right? Get to the point."
Sara widened her eyes at Abium's guess and nodded in agreement.
"Y-Yes. To achieve that goal, Iskax bribed a Royal Mage and even put a soul curse on King Sewallus to weaken him. After that, I entered the Royal Capital with the assistance of the same Royal Mage and captured King Sewallus's soul."
"Where is the dagger? Is King Sewallus's soul still sealed in the dagger?" Abium asked with a frown.
If you want to save the King, hurry, and head to the Royal Treasury sooner. Otherwise, it might not be possible." Sara spoke in a solemn tone and backed away.
However, Abium shook his head and did not allow her to escape.
"I don't care what happens to the King," He said calmly and thought of the Guardian hidden in the Royal Treasury.
'I also don't know a thing about the Royal Guardian. But I once heard that it is a Third-Tier being and has equal strength as Headmaster Alius. So, there is no way this low-level demon could enter the Royal Treasury and return back alive.'
'Nevertheless, these guys have done a good job fooling the mages and nobles. Not only did they manage to capture King Sewallus's soul but they even made those nobles scapegoats and almost achieved their goal.'
It's better to return to the Royal Treasury and check out on my own. Who knows, I might get an opportunity to enter the Royal Treasury.' Alas, he didn't dare to act recklessly.
'First, I should focus on the current problem.' Nodding, he locked his gaze on Lily and spoke.
"You guys have two options now. First, obey my orders from now on and work under me." He paused as he noticed the abrupt change in both facial expressions and added calmly.
"Don't worry; I won't ask you to do anything impossible. As long as you do your job properly, I might even protect you from Kingdom or any outsider's force in the future."
"What is the second option, Mister?" Lily didn't even fully hear his words and asked.
Meanwhile, Abium curled his lips upward and spoke without even a hint of emotion on his face.
"If you don't agree to my earlier request, I'll kill both of you right here and now."