𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝔀𝓮𝙗𝓷𝓸𝙫𝓮𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

Before leaving the settlement, Daimon used Disaster to cut a literal room of the castle to then store it in his inventory, the black material of which the castle was made, had only one property which was stabilize nether.

Apparently the four races had their own means to deal with the nether that was in constant clash with the different kinds of mana on the atmosphere, the Black Night race used this mineral which only they knew how to process, to do that.

As to why Daimon only took a part of it, was because Ashelia, the first of the members of the Black Night race to surrender, informed him that the castles of the higher ranked tribes were made of a better-quality material, so he just took a "sample", who knows when something can come in handy and if not, he knows a certain fox girl who'll be more than happy to study a new material.

The group went through the castle since the ship of this settlement was stationed at the backyard, which had a small pier that led to a river which derived from the sea that surrounded the territory of the Black Night race.

Along the way, Daimon got to know from Razer, that this place had no name, at least not an official one, the four races were actually separated from each other for a long time, and only met after they had grown enough to start a war that has extended until now, that's as much as Razer knew, for further information Daimon had to go meet the elders of the Sea clan.

But in this case, given the strength Daimon has displayed, Razer instead contacted the chief of his tribe, so that he called someone from a higher ranked tribe to come to pick them up.

"We have learned from our mistakes, so this time one of the tribe guardians will be sent, with an Arch rank on the boat, the other races will hardly try anything", said Razer as he gazed at Daimon's shadow.

Needless to say, but the primitive merman was weirded at the fact that Ashelia's voice came from within Daimon's shadow, only Daimon could hear, detect and see Rita when she was hidden in his shadow, so for Razer and the others, it was Daimon the one who somehow imprisoned those girls from the Black Night race and was now ordering them, an impressive but quite fearsome ability.

Once the group got in the boat, Razer and his fellow mermen took their positions, they all knew how to navigate, and prepared everything to sail.

"We'll be at my tribe's island in an hour, I trust you don't mind if we burn all the fuel of this boat?", he asked to Daimon who casually nodded.

The fuel he was talking about were mana crystals, and he had more than what he could use anyway, and that was before stealing all the treasury from this settlement, looting paid off quite nicely.

In case you wonder what happened to that guy from the Flesh race, Daimon already interrogated him, not much information was obtained since he was only an early-stage Lord rank prisoner, but he got to know what their public instructions were.

The Sea clan was told to aid those who came from the outside and those who were judged to be worthy were meant to be taken with the elders of the strongest tribes, the Black Night race was told to instill conflict between them, the ones with emblems or who were related to emblem owners had to be handed to their elders as well.

As for the Flesh and Bone races, in short words they were told to capture the outsiders, then they basically used them as resources, as in they ate their flesh and bones respectively, the reason why they had low conflict with each other, is that one only ate flesh and the other only ate bones, so they exchanged supplies with the other from time to time.

Another interesting thing, is that Daimon and the others, including the members of the other elite classes weren't the first ones to come here in a while, no, similar to what apparently happened at the Maelstrom Sea some time ago, random people were dragged to this place from time to time.

The humans that gave Calvin and the others a ride to an island of the Sea clan, were descendants of people that ended up stranded in this place, still, unlike the ones Thea's clan got to know, the humans here were really weak, they led mundane lives as fishermen or did other simple jobs as they couldn't even reach the Lord rank.

Daimon and the others went downstairs and rested on the common area of the ship, the women of the Black Night race only ate those black crystals, so the ship was sparkling clean, besides the gloomy atmosphere caused by the fact that the whole place was painted black, the ship wasn't bad at all.

At least compared to what Ashelia told Daimon about the unpleasant scenes they had seen on the ships of the Flesh and Bone races.

Around an hour later, Daimon suddenly heard the unmistakable sound of a notification ringing in his mind.

[Ding]

[The host has successfully held onto incomplete emblems X3, for more than an hour, the host had been granted authority over them, please select new owners for them (Be aware that those to whom you assign emblems will be considered members of your team)]

"Oh?", Daimon was surprised by the fact that an indicator appeared above all the presents in the room, in other words, he could add Calvin and the others to his team.

"Here, I have these badges I got from some idiots that tried to capture Daphne, I only have three so you decide who has to wait until the next batch is "delivered" to us, they don't really come with any obligation for you, and the benefit I know about them, is that I'll be able to know your relative position while here", said Daimon as he took out the three emblems, he got from the three members of the secret royal guards which were under Arlion's command.

Before anyone could say anything, Calvin grabbed the three emblems and handed one to the two girls and the last one was for Michael.

"Oi, Calvin bastard who gave you the right to speak for me?", exclaimed Michael only to see Calvin mockingly gazing at him.

"What, I'm stronger so I can wait, besides like this I have an excuse to be close to Loren, you already have Haylee, so shut up and don't ruin this young master's plan, shrimp", he casually said, which made Loren slightly blush.

Michael sighed but didn't say anything, as hard as it was for him to admit it, Calvin was slightly stronger than under the current circumstances, he had trouble to kill those members of the Bone and Flesh races, while Calvin clashed with them frontwards and was able to overwhelm them, thanks to his absurdly high defense, Michael's fighting style was more effective against the Black Night race, as they mostly relied on sneak attacks and Michael was faster than them.

Ultimately those three accepted the incomplete emblems and that triggered a new notification for Daimon.

[Ding]

[The information of the global raid mission has been updated!]

[Challenges available: 20 à 23]

[Challenges completed: 0/20 (Overscore now available)]

'Well, I guess that solves the question of whether overscore was possible in this mission', thought Daimon, apparently the number of challenges wasn't fixed, but pass the original 20, if completed they will be counted as overscore.

Razer wasn't joking when he said he was going to use all the fuel of the ship, before they noticed the ship stopped moving meaning they had arrived at their destination.

Daimon and the others stood up and went upstairs, on the deck of the ship, Razer and the rescued members od the Sea clan were talking with another group of mermen that were waiting at the pier, after a few exchanges in what seemed to be the exclusive language of the Sea clan, the ship was allowed to land.

"Esteemed guests, welcome to the island of the Water Claw tribe", said Razer as he invited Daimon and the others to leave the ship.

Once they were at firm land, Daimon observed Razer's island, despite the Sea clan looking quite beast-like, they were rather civilized as in they had a pretty decent organized settlement, with buildings that took advantage of the space and a large population which included both mermen and humans.

Daimon had already noticed it earlier after seeing the mermen from the other tribes, but they all had similar characteristics, the only changes were the colors of their scales and the shapes of their bodies, some were tall, some were slim, some were short etc.

Also, there weren't females, but strangely enough there were kids of the mermen race playing with human children, now Daimon honestly didn't put much attention to it, but Razer wasn't wearing clothes, he had some tribal ornaments, like wristbands, a belt from which a sword made out of bone was hanging and other things, but not proper clothes.

The same applied to the others, some wore jackets or even shorts which were obviously made by the humans that lived here, but it was more of a fashion thing than a requirement, which probably meant that mermen lacked sexual organs, in other words they were unable to produce offspring, which is another sign of an artificial or incomplete race.

And that is interesting, considering Razer told them that the one who survived the ambush and informed him that Calvin and the others were taken prisoners, was his older brother and continuing with that, an older looking merman approached them to then say.

"Welcome, esteemed guests, my younger son has told me about your feats, thanks for avenging my oldest child, please follow me to the chief's house".

That merman who presented himself as Razer's father, was a middle stage Lord rank, though in terms of age he seemed to be older than the middle stage Lord ranks of the Black Night race, like Ashelia and the others, Daimon could easily tell he was stronger than them, if he had to guess, a member of this race on the same rank as the members of the other three races, was around three to four times stronger.

That being said, according to the quick scan he made by borrowing Rita's senses, the number of Lord ranks was barely the same as the settlement of the Black Night race, of earlier, and according to Razer, his tribe was higher ranked than them, so they lacked in terms of quantity but compensated with quality.

The only problem is that they also had quite a bit of civilians, in the form of humans, that from Daimon's point of view weren't apt for combat, in a planet where the rule is survival of the fittest, that is a hard set up.

"My name is Gabriel, it's a pleasure", however, Daimon presented himself, Calvin and the others were already known by the mermen of this tribe, since they were being transported by a member of their tribe when they were ambushed, so their names and descriptions were recorded so they were rescued if there was a chance to do so, as for Daphne, Daimon purposedly didn't introduce her, since there was something bothering him but he still had to confirm it.

Razer and the other rescued mermen were taken to the medical facilities of the tribe, while Razer's father, guided Daimon to the chief's house.

Along the way, Daimon carefully observed the architecture of the mermen structures, as well as the distribution, humans have had a pretty big influence in it obviously, and yet he didn't recognize their style at all, it didn't even match with the ones he has seen in Neptune, neither what he knew about the four galaxies or Kerrol.

"Here we are, I'll wait outside, please feel at home", said Razer's father as he opened the door of the largest building in the mermen settlement.

Daimon and the others entered and were welcomed by a large open room, which has been organized to become something like a meeting room, with a large rectangular table placed horizontally, where a few mermen were sitting.

A total of nine to be exact, the one at the middle seat was the sole peak Lord stage existence in this settlement, which Daimon had already confirmed earlier, then there were eight middle stage ones divided, four at the right and four at the left.

"Welcome to the Water Claw tribe, visitors from the outside, I'm Alec the chief of this tribe, please take a seat", Alec was quite old looking, which would explain why though this tribe is not weak, it is still relatively near the shore even if it owns an island, their strongest members were too old to have a chance to reach the Arch rank, and Razer's brother who was probably the one who had the chance to, was killed.

Which is why the atmosphere of the room was slightly tense, or at least that's the reason Daimon could think about right now, considering the four mermen on the left didn't seem happy to see them.

"One of the children of my tribe informed us about your arrival beforehand, so we have invited a guardian from one of the high ranked tribes of our race, due to the promptness of the situation, he'll be arriving in a few minutes I hope you don't mind the wait, in the meantime if you have any questions feel free to ask, however I hope you can also help us solve a few doubts we have", said Alec to which Daimon nodded.

"Ok, for starters, I couldn't help but notice that there are children from your race and that you get along with humans, but I don't see female members of your race?", he asked.

Alec nodded back at Daimon, he didn't know the exact race of Daimon and the others, but their appearance was human-like so he expected that to be one of their first questions, since other humans often asked the same when they first met.

"Unlike the human race, we all come to life thanks to our deity, after a certain amount of time a batch of eggs from which our race is birth, is delivered through the altar that we use to praise our guardian deity, though we aren't related as you humans call it, an older member of the race takes care of a couple of young ones".

Daimon nodded, satisfied with the explanation, whatever was the guardian deity of the Sea clan, had to be equally strong as the Nethereal lords, of it was able to create a whole race, though they lacked some basic traits of natural races, they didn't have major defects and at the four galaxies no one has been able to do that, artificial undead didn't count since they technically weren't alive, they couldn't become stronger either and stayed as they were created.

But these Mermen, as well as the Black Night race and even the Flesh race were capable of advancing, as for the Bone race, if they followed the same pattern as artificial undead, they were unable to, but in exchange they could be created to be strong since the moment they came to life, though that was quite pricey resource wise, hence why Horals and Rita's original races are the strongest artificial undead created as of current.

Now it was Alec's turn to ask, so he did so.

"According to that child, you possess strength noticeably above your realm and in the records, those four were said to be related to an Emblem owner, are you one?", he asked.

"Yes", at this point there was no need to hide it, especially because Daimon had yet to learn what the hell were those "challenges" mentioned by the global raid, what he knew is that these four races were involved as they knew about emblems, so he could obtain the answer to that, through them.

Daimon could see the eight elders of the tribe talking to each other in their native language, while Alec seemed to be lost in his thoughts.

"Since we are skipping to the serious questions, tell me about that guardian deity of yours, the other three races also have one and apparently how you treat outsiders is based on the instructions you received, so I can't help but feel curious about it".

"…", an uncomfortable silence fell in the room, before one of the four elders on the left was about to raise his voice, before Alec glared at him making his words die in his throat.

"Before that, could you show me your emblem, I know it's your time to ask, but to answer that there is something I must confirm first?", he said.

Daimon shrugged and then took out his black Sea Emblem, in any case it's not like the mermen of this level could pose a threat for him, not to mention he also wanted to know more about that little thing.

Still, the reaction was different than what he expected, they neither became hostile but they also didn't seem to become friendlier, instead they were confused, Alec took out a book out of his spatial ring and then leafed through it but ultimately shook his head.

"I… don't know what emblem is that, however it isn't also listed on the emblems that were created by the evil deities of the other races", mumbled Alec before saying.

"In that case, following the teachings of our deity, I will answer your question based on my judgement of you, I'm not an Arch rank so the information I have is limited, however I do know the supposed race of our deity, the Black Prison Megalodon, in the history of our race, he is the one that stopped the three evil deities from destroying our land".

Daimon inwardly frowned, he hadn't heard about that race of magic beast, however it was a sea magic beast, which aligned with the human race of the Mermen Sea at Neptune, so chances are, they are related, little by little he felt he was approaching the truth.

Of course, getting answers directly from the old monsters, like Arlion or the Arch ranks of the Sea clan, would be more efficient, though making them talk might be troublesome, as the sudden pressure that flooded the room, suggested.

The door of the building was destroyed and a pained sound came from the one guarding it, in other words, Razer's father, as a tall merman entered the room with heavy steps.

Unlike the ones present in the room, the newcomer had traits that weren't mixed, but exclusively belonged to a shark type magic beast, not to mention the pressure belonged to an early stage Archknight.

"Alec, who gave you the right to speak about our sacred secrets with outsiders, according to the rules of the Sea clan, I will take all the presents under custody!".

The pressure of the shark merman made a few of the elders of Razer's try to fall from their chairs, but Alec managed to resist and counter some of the pressure with his own.

The shark merman coldly snorted.

"Humph, futile tricks…", but the pressure was completely dispelled the next second when another figure appeared in the room.

"That's enough Vandor", the second figure was much smaller, but was also a shark type merman, however this one was an Archmage.

"Don't get in my way, Zander", growled the first shark merman.

Alec immediately went to check on Razer's father and after confirming everything was okay, he returned to then ask.

"Alec greets guardian Zander, could you please tell me what is going, I was informed that only a guardian was coming and far as I knew it was with pacific intentions, so why is a punisher in my Water Claw tribe?".

The Archmage shark merman sighed, he turned to see Daimon's group before saying.

"A couple of our tribes were just completely massacred, not even the children, elderly or the sick, were spared, however one of the tribe chiefs managed to send an emergency message to us, "outsiders", was the single word that could be understandable before the message was abruptly interrupted…".