A Demon's Journey

"Master, I also know a way to defeat my opponent," Sargan spoke with a serious voice.

Azaroth glanced at Sargan and asked him, "Hoh. What is it?"

"We have to do some unexpected things. That even we can't see through it." He then turned towards his associates, "This array has been created to copy us completely so to beat it, we have to do something so unexpected that even the array will be helpless."

"I am sure all of you have created or atleast begun to create some techniques. They are probably still incomplete. Use them against your counterparts. Since even you don't know whether they will succeed or not, your counterpart won't be able to guess its result. This is a complete gamble though. If you succeed then you can have an opportunity to beat your counterpart. And if you fail, you will once again lose."

Azaroth was extremely satisfied when he heard this answer from Sargan.

This was different from Noah's method. What Noah was planning was to actually increase his sword intent's level while he was fighting against his opponent. This meant, he was planning to increase his sword intent's comprehension within a few hours. Perhaps he could sense that he was about to break through his bottleneck.

But Sargan was telling them to use incomplete techniques that had a low chance of succeeding. This would not only allow them to understand their techniques but also defeat their Heart-Devil.

It was killing two birds with one stone.

All of them understood his words except for Noah. He disdained using such a method. In his opinion, this was just a lowly trick. It felt like a shortcut.

The best would be when he defeats his opponent while also increasing his comprehension of sword intent.

Noah had no idea that this very idea he had thought was a hack. If he knew then he would definitely be embarrassed for looking down on his comrades.

Azaroth looked at Tiana and noticed she was gesturing while pointing her finger at herself. It seemed as though she wanted to talk to him regarding something.

"Alright. You all can leave. You should eat something and take some rest. I hope you will clear this trial tomorrow." Azaroth seemed to be dispersing everyone.

Azaroth then gestured towards Tiana and informed her to go in her training ground. He would meet here there.

Once they had all left the area, Azaroth went to talk to Tiana.

"What is it?" Azaroth asked with a solemn look.

Tiana looked very hesitant but spoke, "…Master, I am happy that you are training me and make me stronger. I know it's because you have some plans that only I can accomplish. But still, I am grateful that you have made me stronger. I am happy to have met Laura, Yrellea, Noah, Sargan, and Ralph…"

"Don't talk in circles," Azaroth said sternly, "Let's get right to the point."

"Master… I wanted to meet my mother. If she comes to know that I am disappeared from the Rhodes Mansion, she will be really worried for me. Her mental health isn't good and she might even collapse because of it." Tiana spoke with a worried tone.

Azaroth remained stern as he asked her, "And you didn't inform me of this because?"

Tiana took a deep breath to calm her emotions and spoke, "Initially, I thought you wouldn't listen to my words and will be quite forceful towards me. Make me one of your pawns. But now I believe you aren't going to make us mere pawns. Even though I don't know much about the warriors, but I know that you have spent an enormous amount of wealth to train us. You definitely won't do that on mere pawns. No matter how much they would potential we possessed."

"Secondly, at that time, I guessed that Marquis Jonas won't inform this information to my family. He would try to find me at all costs and suppress all news about my disappearance. But now… So much time has passed. I am afraid that Marquis Jonas has already informed my family about it. I just want to meet them and tell them I am doing fine." Tiana looked anxious as she spoke.

Azaroth stared at her using his Mystic Eyes of Perception. He activated it because he wanted to be careful. One can never be too cautious about his life.

He found no abnormality in her emotions.

Azaroth asked with a softer tone, "…Where does your family live?"

"Within the Prento Village near the Borves City," Tiana replied instantly.

Azaroth thought deeply about her words.

He then spoke with a serious tone, "It's not far from the Wrihull City. In fact, if we travel from Kloras Town to Wrihull City, your Prento village will be somewhere in the middle."

"But you see, there are several issues with this. It concerns your identity. There is a high chance that Jonas has asked some people to keep an eye on your parents. If they show an abnormal response, Jonas will figure out that you met up with them. They will torture your parents to get that information out of them. So to keep them quiet, I might have to kill them."

Azaroth asked with a cold look, "Do you want that to happen?"

Tiana's face immediately paled upon hearing his words, "No. No. Forgive me. I won't meet with them anymore, master."

Azaroth's expression became calm almost a second later and he spoke, "No. Calm down. I am not threatening you."

Tiana didn't dare to say anything. She just looked at Azaroth with fear.

Azaroth stated while looking into Tiana's eyes, "This was merely one option. The other could be to ask them to relocate somewhere else. However, losing the pursuers will be extremely troublesome. It's, in fact, possible they might find us. That's not something I want."

Tiana had lost all hope after those words from Azaroth. She did feel he was being too cautious but now had no courage to speak up against him.

"It's also obligatory for you to meet your parents since they won't trust the words of some random person," Azaroth spoke with a calm look.

"In this situation, you have only a single way of meeting your parents where your parents can continue their life cheerfully afterward," Azaroth spoke.

For a few seconds, Tiana couldn't react properly. But when her brain processed the information, she couldn't control the smile on her face.

"Meet them. This can be your mission. But only after you pass this trial." Azaroth gave his final response to her request.

Tiana looked shocked but very delighted to hear this.

"Thank you. Thank you, master. I will never forget this act of benevolence. Thank you."

Tears of happiness soon began to drip down Tiana's face.

"Now go and get some rest. I am sure you want to pass the trial as soon as possible." Azaroth spoke.

Tiana nodded her head frantically, "Yes, as you command, master."

Azaroth gazed at Tiana's back with his typical emotionless look.

He wasn't allowing her to meet her parents because he had become kind.

In reality, within his retainers, all of them had a reason to be obedient to him. Azaroth was sure that if he assigned a mission to someone, that person would do his task with his utmost concentration. All but one person.

Tiana.

In reality, she had no proper reason to faithfully obey his orders.

He was looking for an opportunity to get her under his complete control. But if he tried to use her using her parents, then that would be very counterproductive.

Her parents would become her weakness then. Someone else could use her parents to use her.

Moreover, she could try to betray him or even refuse to do her missions seriously. And Azaroth would only have one option. To eliminate this woman.

To prevent that, he had to make her wholly submit to him.

He needed to trick her into believing he was aiding her. Aiding her as long as she remained loyal to him.

She also needed to know what would occur if she tried to betray him. Hence, he had mentioned that he might have to kill her parents.

Azaroth knew that humans are creatures who take decisions based on their emotions. Logical reasoning played a role in it as well. No doubt about it.

But many of the times, humans take their decisions based on emotions. Their reasoning is also affected by their emotions. This makes them easier to manipulate. But this also becomes a reason that they are hard to control sometimes.

To be emotionally connected to someone, Azaroth knew that a small act of benevolence goes a long way.

Perhaps it isn't much in his or other people's views, but to the individual, it may be everything.

There were several cases like this. For example, the wealthy cannot comprehend the plight of the impoverished. Such was the case here.

Azaroth thought that he had an opportunity to bring Tiana under his complete control and he took advantage of it.

In fact, even if Tiana knew that he was just manipulating her, she would willingly get manipulated to see her parents and tell them she was fine.

But there was no need for Azaroth to inform her of such information. It was fine how things were going.

As for the issues of Tiana seeing her parents. In reality, it wasn't as exaggerated as he informed Tiana.

He knew that his father had asked some of his men to keep an eye on her parents but they wouldn't be some strong warriors. At best, they would be from the local mob.

Such a long time had passed since Tiana's disappearance that he was sure the people keeping an eye on these people were getting lazy.

Combined with a few precautions he had in mind, the situation would be absolutely perfect.

The condition he had left for Tiana would also motivate her to pass the trial. Azaroth was hitting many birds with a single stone. And was extremely pleased with this entire situation.

Azaroth soon left for his own training ground.

~~

The next day, everyone attempted those same trials.

After 10 minutes or so, one of them had already managed to defeat his opponent.

This person was Noah.

Azaroth was too shocked. He knew that Noah was confident about passing the trial but it still should have taken him a few more tries.

Moreover, as he sensed Noah's aura, he felt that it had gotten even sharper.

It felt as though Noah had comprehended the "Man and Sword as One" stage even further.

However, once he spent a deeper thought on it, Azaroth understood the reason for Noah's progression.

Nearly all his life, Noah always practiced alone. When he fought against Azaroth, he was still rough along the edges in terms of his comprehension of the path of a swordsman.

He trained and increased his strength. He fought against weak minions created by his array which probably helped him slightly. But it was the first time he had fought against a being of equal strength and ability to himself.

When he went up against himself for the first time in his life, he began to actively think of ways to improve himself as a swordsman.

This led to quick results because he was excavating his untapped potential.

Azaroth understood the basic theory but he was still amazed. This subordinate of his was truly talented. And now, Azaroth was stressed that he now had to give a mission to Noah.

No other of his retainers managed to pass the trial.

Even though they all heard of Sargan's theory, it was extremely difficult to put it into practice. Even more difficult was actually succeeding in it.

Currently, among them, only Sargan and Tiana had managed to attempt it in battle. But they didn't succeed.

Tiana didn't get depressed. She continued to think of how she could have defeated her opponent.