Now that they found their target in such a compromised position, their fear melted away. It was first replaced with delight.
"We are in luck. This will be easy."
"Killing him will be easy as squashing a bug."
They surrounded him and chatted amongst themselves with glee. Their glee turned to confusion.
"What could have turned him into this anyway?"
"Yes, I wonder that too."
"Is there something so dangerous around here?"
"He obviously fought something or someone here. Look at the ground. It was a huge fight too. The ground suffered heavily."
The surface of the ground had undergone an upheaval. There were rocks, debris, and small pools of lava everywhere. The deep pits indicating explosive impacts were especially telling of the violence that had happened here. There is a saying that when two elephants fight, it is the grass beneath their feet that suffers. The state of the environment indicates how big the two elephants that fought are.
They had prepared such a large amount of demon power to take down a single demon. What could have beaten them to it and put him in such a state? The traces of battle depicted a fierce battle too. Whoever Aeternus faced must have been very strong.
As interesting as the matter was, it couldn't hold their attention for long. Their confusion soon turned into greed.
"No matter what happened, he is right here in the palm of our hands. We can do anything to him."
"That's true. Let's see if he still has the spatial artifact."
"He doesn't have it. I searched him all over with my divine sense and couldn't find anything. Not even his blade."
"So the ones that put him in this situation took it."
"It's most likely the forces of the demon nobles."
"So what should we do now?"
"We torture him and find out all of his secrets before we kill him."
"Yes, he must know some secrets. How else did he become strong enough to kill high-rank demons as a mid-rank demon?"
The figure beside Aeternus said to him, "Do you hear that? They intend to torture you. I'm also highly interested in your secrets so I'll like to watch this."
They couldn't hear or see her, but she could hear them. The demon lord of the plane can hear all conversations going on in the plane with her divine sense except those of the demon nobles in the nine cities. The recent anomaly to that perk of being the demon lord is the inability to snoop on Aeternus's divine sense. So she is very much interested in his secrets.
Aeternus ignored her taunts. His mind was on how he got here and how to get out of it. It may have seemed like one thing led to another but the demon lord had orchestrated this entire thing. She may not want him to die, but she was willing to put him within an inch of death so that he would ask her for help. The suicide explosion of his attackers finally made sense and why they waited for him to deplete the charges of his trump card.
If he were whole and hearty, he might be able to struggle against these many high-rank demons and have a chance at escaping. But as he is right now, he is no better than meat on a chopping board.
"Why so silent? You have to speak up if you want to preserve your life." She teased him again.
"I don't have anything to say to you." He said to her.
She looked up at their surroundings and the sight of 300 high-rank demons sharpening their blades to chop the helpless meat that is Aeternus filled her gaze. And yet, Aeternus claims he doesn't have anything to say to her. "Are you sure? I'm not a seer but I can predict that you will ask me for help soon."
He remained adamant. "Well, you're wrong about that. I don't need your help and will never need your help."
She sneered. "I thought you were intelligent and reasonable. How do you propose to get out of this conundrum? You're all alone."
She is anxious and worried behind her facade of mockery. She isn't worried that he had an ace up his sleeve. She had been watching him for quite a while now and had created a module of his strength and weaknesses, his capabilities and limits. She is worried that he would rather die than accept defeat. Then her effort will be in vain and might backfire against her. She just wanted him to be desperate enough for her to take advantage of him. She didn't want him to be killed.
Aeternus chuckled. "I'm not alone. I was not alone. I am never alone."
He is legion-3, a part of the collective consciousness and the ideal that is Legion. He is never alone. The concept of Legion is to be one but made of many. This is more than an idea that provides just emotional support. Legion is still in its formative stage but it is able to assist Aeternus with real power.
Aeternus reached into the soul sphere and tapped into the basic power of an Origin god from Legion-1. The soul of Legion-1 within the world beast responded and channeled the power of his domain into the soul sphere. When the power reached Aeternus's soul, it morphed because of the mark of sin and the chaos energy.
A black ring spread out from the skull on the ground at the speed of light. It enveloped an area with a radius of 500 meters in every direction. A black sphere sprung into existence all of a sudden and it trapped all the high-rank demons and a large chunk of the divine sense of the demon lord.
If a soul is powerful enough, it can create a nascent world, as seen in Soverick's case. This nascent world and its effect continue to improve as the soul becomes stronger. At first, it gives one slight control over the mana in an area, then it becomes a full-blown world as seen in a world god.