A Demon's Journey

The battle between Bryon and Lennard made their standings clear. Although Lennard was very conceited, he wasn't a hypocrite. He would respect the results of the battle. Moreover, he figured it wasn't a big issue to submit to his father.

Azaroth was on a journey to gather Death Energy and lay out a very large-scale Seventh Grade Killing Array. This killing array was known as the Instantaneous Deathly Array.

The effect of this Instantaneous Deathly Array was quite simple. The user could condense the Death Energy and infuse the target with it. As long as Death Energy overpowered the vitality of the targeted individual, the opponent would die instantly.

Fortunately, the opponent would be able to detect when the Death Energy was poured into his body. The only way of countering this array was to either use Life Force or flee from the array's boundary.

However, the loss of vitality would be permanent. And no matter if it was an Archangel, a Demon Emperor, or a human expert. All of them feared death more than anything!

"…It's getting troublesome setting up arrays for everyone. I am clearly not enough for this task. Creating a clone won't be a good idea. I have already sacrificed a lot of my spirit, and losing any more of it would prevent me from gaining insights into the elements," Azaroth whispered.

He recalled Sophie's talent in Array Formations. That woman did have an impressive ability to understand arrays and set them up. If she was under Azaroth's tutelage, her skill would advance tremendously, and she could learn to set up a 6 Star Array in no time. In fact, she could also help Azaroth in setting up a 7-Star Array.

'However, Tronte is aware of my true identity now. It's likely that he has already revealed it to Sophie, or he is holding her captive and plans to use her as bait to capture me,' Azaroth thought and sighed.

'I can only give up on that woman,' Azaroth resolutely concluded. He wasn't a stupid individual who would take a risk for such a matter.

A talented array master was rare, but Azaroth's current task of killing all the Emperor Ranked Experts took greater priority. Moreover, his spirit was in a recovering phase and couldn't create a clone. Lastly, Tronte was probably ready for him.

'I can always search for another talent or teach one of my retainers,' Azaroth further determined with a serious expression.

There had to be someone who was talented in constructing arrays. He had already tried to teach Tiana, Yrellea, and Sargan. The results were mediocre, and Azaroth wasn't going to invest any more of his time in teaching those blockheads.

Trying to teach Noah to construct arrays would be even worse. He possessed an Enlightened Sword Heart, and his entire talent was focused on the sword.

Thus, only William, Ralph, and Laura remained. Azaroth was slightly optimistic about William and Ralph.

Azaroth didn't know what to say about Laura. Her creativity was surprisingly astounding. By surprising, he meant that sometimes she had very interesting ideas for techniques that Azaroth couldn't think of. And sometimes, she would lack basic common sense.

While on the road, Azaroth began guiding William, Ralph, and Laura in the array formation via his Mystical Spiritual Connection Ring.

He took a test two weeks later and received an update on their progress. Among the three, William and Laura showed astounding progress in array formation!

William took the standard approach and absorbed all of Azaroth's knowledge and insights related to the array like a sponge. Meanwhile, Laura seemed to understand the bare minimum regarding the theory of array formation and used her ingenuity to think of some amazing designs and theories.

Moreover, she managed to incorporate her wood techniques with arrays and further increased the power of her attacks.

Azaroth was very satisfied with these results. Meanwhile, Ralph was a little disheartened as he couldn't understand arrays as well as his comrades.

Noticing his plight, Azaroth reassured him that it wasn't such a big deal. Instead, he had noticed Ralph's other talent during this training.

Ralph had a very impressive flame control. Perhaps it was after he fused with the Sabertooth Tiger's Tooth and mutated his bloodline to the Ancient Tiger's Bloodline, but his flame control truly seemed extraordinary.

Moreover, his flames were also on the verge of a mutation. Those flames would mutate as soon as Ralph absorbed a bit of pure energy from the Blazing Cerulean Crystals.

Azaroth passed those crystals to Ralph and ordered him to focus on absorbing the flame energy within those crystals. He had to be completely concentrated and prevent any leakage of the flame energy.

Once Ralph's flames had mutated into Cerulean Flames, Azaroth planned to teach him alchemic techniques.

Ralph possessed eidetic memory because of the Ancient Tiger's Bloodline. And Alchemy's primary focus was on memorizing the effects and reasoning of the various techniques, herbs, and ingredients.

Secondly, an Alchemist's control over the flame or his respective element had to be absolutely perfect. The purity of the pellets would largely depend on the Alchemist's fine flame control.

Azaroth felt that Ralph could easily concoct a high-grade pellet due to his fine flame control. He merely had to practice hard and gather more recipes.

Fortunately, getting more recipes wouldn't be a challenging task for Ralph since Azaroth would provide them to him. He merely had to focus on working hard.

However, Ralph didn't know about Azaroth's thoughts. He was thinking of himself as a failure.

Ralph knew he had the worst potential out of all of Azaroth's retainers. He only managed to thrive recently because Azaroth gifted him that Sabertooth Tiger's Tooth. If not for that, he would be even weaker.

His group was far weaker than Noah's Heretical Paladins or Laura's Noble Guardians, far less useful than Sargan's Intelligent Network or Yrellea's Misty Flower Pavilion, and far less influential than Tiana's Sacred Ice Aurora Valley Sect.

Ralph began to think of himself as a pure failure. Azaroth noticed his plight and was already giving him a huge opportunity, but without explaining it to him. He knew Ralph would be happy after discovering it, so he ignored this matter. He had a lot on his mind recently.

Azaroth's retainers also noticed Ralph's predicament. They tried to encourage him by praising his group and giving him reasons for how he was useful to Azaroth. They were using truth and facts, but Ralph's melancholy was not alleviated.

Only William remained, who had yet to talk to Ralph.

After everyone went to sleep, he walked to Ralph and spoke, "You have been rather depressed these days. I see everyone saying those encouraging words to make you feel better. But I believe they are doing it wrong."

William then gazed at the beautiful scenery of the mountains and valleys glowing under the moonlight. He added seriously, "…You see. I faced this issue as well. It was when I realized the difference between Noah and me. I thought I was the most useless of master's retainers."

"However, what was the result? I turned out to be absolutely wrong!" William spoke with a determined look.

Ralph was forced to gaze at him with an inquisitive look on his face, "And what do you mean by that?"

"There isn't anyone more useless or less useful to Master. In fact, if you look at the whole structure, you will understand that the Master wanted to spread his control over everything. You are a small but integral part of that structure, just like Noah or Sargan."

"Moreover, Master doesn't look for short-term gain. He is always focused on the long-term benefits. Just how long do you think you have been with Master? It's barely been one and a half years. You have had incredible progress within this period!"

"Trust Master a bit. There is no way he would allow you to relax even slightly. He has big plans for you," William assured confidently.

That confident expression shook Ralph a bit. Ralph was shaking due to excitement as he also experienced goosebumps all over his body.

Ralph asked with a curious yet excited look, "You know something about master's future plan, right?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. What do you think?" William left that question hanging as he walked away.