Daniel released his spiritual senses, and like a vast domain, they spread through the darkness and covered a massive area.
Sounds... heartbeats... waves of energy... you could say nothing in this region was hidden from him. If it wasn’t for the fact that the nature of his spiritual senses was still lower than divine senses, there was no doubt that even now, nothing would escape his awareness.
He saw the true faces of those who were following him and Kayn like shadows, focused his senses on them, and examined them carefully.
And the ones who were following did not even know that a complete scan of their existence was already happening, and that everything had been exposed from the start.
His eyes narrowed. His lips turned into a dry, cold line.
"Kayn..." he said, then turned to his friend.
"They’re not human."
"Is that possible? ... But—" Kayn immediately stopped. His brows furrowed.
Suddenly, the stench of death they had sensed from the border town came back to his mind like a mental удар. His face paled slightly.
A bad feeling and prediction formed in his heart. In fact, he could guess what had happened.
"Not only are they not human... they’re demons," Daniel continued.
"But... this side of the gulf... it’s supposed to be under human control. What are demons doing here?" Kayn frowned deeply. His prediction had really come true.
Even so, he couldn’t understand what the demons were doing on this side of the gulf. Those bastards had never dared to advance this far before.
"They probably pushed forward," Daniel gave his guess.
"They most likely had orders. The Demon King’s dogs don’t just step into the gulf for no reason. There’s a high chance the order came from above to expand their borders up to here."
"If that’s the case... then the situation is way worse than I thought..." Kayn clenched his teeth.
His eyes were filled with anxiety and concern. He had no fear of the demons following them and didn’t care about them at all.
What worried him was the possibility of the demons advancing, and the fact that if they dared to move now that the Mad Empress had appeared, it meant the Demon King had no fear of that woman.
On the contrary, they probably wanted to show their authority.
His gaze fell on Daniel. The words Daniel had said to him on the ship echoed again in his mind. Was that possibility really true?
It was clear his mind was getting tangled in a thousand different paths.
"I have a plan." Daniel suddenly said.
Kayn’s eyes widened. And before he could even ask anything, a sudden wave of mental communication flowed into his mind.
"Alright. Let’s do it," Kayn gave him a side glance.
Daniel then slightly lowered his head and whispered to Finn, who was still sitting calmly on his shoulder.
"Go for now. Hide."
Finn’s small eyes gleamed. He quietly flapped his wings, made no sound, and vanished into the black air.
Daniel and Kayn slowed down. Their steps grew heavy... like two exhausted prey... or two who had given up.
And finally, five shadows emerged from the darkness and completely surrounded them.
Five demons.
Their skin was burnt red, and their eyes were yellow, narrow, and merciless... curved and sharp horns rose from their foreheads, some broken yet still terrifying.
Bone-like wings protruded from their backs, and a faint black light flowed between the cracks in their skin.
"Well well, let’s see what we’ve got here... Didn’t expect to sniff out a couple of humans in this wasteland," one of them said with a crooked smile.
"You’re really unlucky to show your faces here of all places," another laughed.
Kayn clenched his teeth. Daniel also slightly tightened his expression, as if he was nervous.
Both of them looked scared, but they still stood their ground.
"If you don’t disappear right now... we’ll be forced to fight! Even if we die, we’ll take you with us!" Kayn shouted.
The demons burst into mocking laughter.
"You?"
"Trash like you wants to kill us?"
"Little human... who do you think you’re dealing with?"
"Garbage like you can’t do anything. We just want to have some fun. It’s been a long time since we found something to crush," one of them said with pure contempt.
One of the demons suddenly appeared at terrifying speed and punched Kayn straight in the stomach.
The sound of bones breaking was clear.
Kayn was thrown like a piece of cloth and rolled several meters away on the ground.
Daniel raised his sword, but before he could even strike, a sharp demonic claw grabbed him from behind by the collar and slammed him backward.
Blood sprayed from his mouth.
Two other demons approached laughing and attacked at the same time.
Daniel used his sword, but their strength and speed were several times beyond any human.
Each blow felt like a sledgehammer smashing into his body.
"You’re too weak... too weak," one of them said mockingly.
But Daniel suddenly—
[ Demonic Twilight Shield ]
A deep purple-black shadow wrapped around his arm and formed a semi-transparent shield in front of him.
The demon’s blow hit the shield, the energy sank into it, was absorbed... and a wave of dark energy shot back.
The demon stepped back. His eyes narrowed as if he had seen something unbelievable.
"This... this is demonic energy!."
"What are you? How can a human use demonic energy?!"
Daniel didn’t answer.
"Hmph! If you don’t want to talk, we’ll force you! There are a lot of ways to make a human speak," one demon stepped forward, his voice dry, threatening, and filled with pure disdain.
At that moment, three demons charged at him together.
The shield shattered. His body slammed to the ground. Kayn stood up again, but a kick under his chin sent him crashing down, half-conscious.
The demons kept striking without pause. No mercy, no hesitation, only the pleasure of torture.
Finally, they forced Daniel onto his knees. They pinned his arms behind him and locked them in place. Kayn was dragged next to him as well.
"Should we kill them? Keeping them isn’t worth the trouble."
But a demon with longer horns and deeper eyes raised his hand.
"No. First I want to know how this human is using our energy. If there’s some important secret behind it... he might be worth more alive than dead."
The others accepted without argument.
Kayn and Daniel... were completely captured.