While Daimon was rushing through the countless golem, avoiding the bolts that were being shot at him, he looked backwards as he wanted to confirm two things.

First if Daphne was doing fine, which was answered by the Valas princess blasting away a batch of golems with the spell "Wind Pressure", that being said Daimon did notice her mana flow was a bit awkward after what happened earlier.

Still, Daphne didn't fall behind and continued to launch spells to destroy the golems, the second thing Daimon wanted to confirm was if him destroying the golems added to Daphne's score, but unfortunately that didn't seem to be the case.

To be fair, there were too many golems, their pattern was practically the same, with the difference that they started attacking the fortress at different distances, so the participants only had to destroy them before they reached their designated distance.

Or that's what appeared to be on the surface, the truth is that this challenge was testing quite a few things, for starters, what differentiated the golems from each other were minimal details, if one didn't have good eyes, it was quite hard to discern one from the other.

Then, one had to have the capacity to concentrate while being surrounded by enemies and arrange the order in which to strike them down, not to mention being skilled in wide area and long ranged spells.

But in Daimon's eyes, what this test was aiming to quantify was something more basic, but at the same time quite important, mana reserves and mana management, which is something in which Daphne excels.

Each attack that landed on the fort diminished the barrier protecting the participant, so at some point the barrier will be destroyed and the participant's time in the challenge will end, in other words, there was no victory in this challenge, the winner would be decided based on who lasts longer… or that was supposed to be the case before Daimon got involved.

Battle aura covered Daimon's legs as he flexed them to then jump, Daphne didn't need his help, under normal circumstances, he was sure that she would destroy the other three participants, but since they weren't playing fair and square, he was just going to make things even.

"Boooom!", with a loud explosion, the ground exploded below Daimon's feet as he soared into the air, the shockwave sent quite a few golems flying away, surprisingly they didn't try to attack him, as he was now out of their range.

Instead of that, the golems on the next area where that skelefiend was facing his trial, were the ones welcoming Daimon who was descending from the sky right now.

Seeing the bolts coming after him, Daimon's body covered in white flames as he accelerated his descend to imitate a meteorite, landing in the middle of the golem army, causing a small tremor due to the impact.

"What the hell, how did he leave the area designated for that woman!", exclaimed the skelefiend, the participants were limited to stay within a certain proximity to their respective fortresses.

Daimon didn't stop in the ceremony, he flashed through the battlefield of that skelefiend, though he was planning to kill them all, Ryan was the first on the list, because he was somehow interfering with Daphne, and the only reason Daimon could think he was able to do that, was with Arlion's help.

Speaking of Ryan, he saw that the skelefiend wasn't trying to stop him from going through his area, as it was obvious who he was going after which, and he gritted his teeth.

"Are you that stupid, what do you think he'll do after getting rid of anyone of us!", he shouted from afar.

"Tsk, that guy is right, don't let him get away", said the pirate guy to his temporary ally, the attacks of the participants couldn't affect an area that isn't their respective one, which is another reason as to why Daimon was aiming straight for Ryan, he bypassed that restriction.

"Fine damn it, but I want a part of the reward", said the skelefiend as he aimed one of his hands at the white flash that was destroying golems right and left, to then shot a green stream of liquid.

Daimon casually increased the output of his Demon Light, and then ignored the attack from the skelefiend.

"Hissss!", the acid stream clashed with the white flames and was vaporized on the spot, some poisonous fog was released, but Daimon did it on purpose as he used the acid fog to help him open up a path faster.

With a smirk, Daimon punched frontwards and the pressure brought all the acid fog in a straight line, melting the golems and allowing Daimon to pass through the area.

"What the hell are you doing, you idiot, why don't you directly come down and escort him through your area, instead!", shouted Ryan as he saw Daimon arriving at the border of the skelefiend's area.

The moment Daimon entered the next area, which was the one designated for the guy from the Purplehaze sect, a curtain of dark purple mist fell all over the place, engulfing not only Daimon but also the nearby golems.

The result was that the runes that made the golems work, started failing on the spot, they actually started attacking each other instead of aiming at the fortress like the others.

"That's what you deserve for daring to act all close with…", the proud filled words of the guy stuck in his throat, blood exploded out of his mouth and while coughed the mist that was static until a second ago, was dragged towards a specific spot.

Once all the mist gathered, the sight of Daimon holding a dark purple orb with his right hand, made the guy from the Purplehaze sect curse.

"Impossible, how can it be that you also received his "blessing", I was promised that she will be mine!!!", he roared.

Daimon observed the purple mist which he was holding with his right hand, others couldn't see it, but there was a very thin layer of white flames containing the purple mist, which was nothing else than a poorly created nether with illusory properties.

Quite a few things came to Daimon's mind, but he decided to leave them for later, he casually let the orb fall to the ground, just for it to sink into his shadow, to disappear without a trace.

Since that guy from the Purplehaze sect was having a mental breakdown of some sort right now, Daimon rushed through his area without any problems, the golems mostly ignored him since their aim was the fortress that protected the participant and they weren't being attacked, so they focused on reducing the barrier around their enemy.

Ryan who was observing the whole situation, inwardly cursed, he suddenly felt a chill running down his spine, as he was gazed from afar by Daimon.

'Useless pieces of trash, they can't even buy time for me!', he thought as he turned to see the last remaining area before his, which is the one designated for the participant that represented the pirates.

"Hey pirate, I have something that will allow us to join hands against him, what do you say?", he said.

The pirate snarked at Ryan to then answer with disdain.

"Oh, so now the noble royalty of the Mermen Sea is requesting help from the pariahs of the Maelstrom Sea, I'll be magnanimous and lend you a hand? for the right price of course".

Ryan fritted his teeth but he wasn't stupid enough to fight an enemy that even Terry couldn't defeat in a 1v1 fight, so he bit the bullet and nodded as a sign of agreeance.

"Those other two were useless, we'll kill him and then divide the "reward" in 60% for you and 40% for me, it's either that or we both lose".

The pirate clicked his tongue, he wanted to rip off Ryan, but there was no time for that, besides he was getting the bigger share and if he teamed up with Ryan, they could eliminate the other two.

"Deal". 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝓌𝑒𝒷𝘯𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝑜𝓂

Ryan saw Daimon landing in the area designated for the pirate guy and he took out a red coin from his pocket, to then crush it into pieces, Daimon who stopped where he landed earlier, looked at the roof of this place, and saw a red mist that came from that coin, overlapping with the arrays in the nearby area, adding new runes to it.

Though he might be able to somewhat understand the specific purpose of those runes if he injected more mana into the infinity eyes, he didn't have the need nor the time to do so, the golems in the pirate and Ryan's area stopped moving all of a sudden.

Also, the two areas merged, the naked eye couldn't directly see the divisions between the territory of each participant, they calculated it based on where the golems stopped, but Daimon could see the invisible divisions.

Naturally with the golems frozen and the areas merged, the pirate as well as Ryan had no need to remain within their respective fortresses, so they jumped down and soon arrived where Daimon was.

The pirate whose name was Allan, observed the new environment created by whatever that coin used by Ryan was, and he frowned.

"Why the hell didn't you use this earlier, weren't you the one bitching about working together to get rid of him?", he asked just to see Ryan snorting.

"It's a one-time thing, of course I was reserving it for later, but I don't think we'll be able to get through the trial with him around, so I decided to use it now", he said.

Daimon who was observing the new runes being attacked by the original ones, and slowly but surely erasing them, understood what was happening.

'It won't last long but he actually overwrote the rules of the challenge, also this feeling again…', he thought before he returned to the real word.

"I can understand you hating Terry, he was always better than you at everything, but why are you targeting Daphne?", he casually asked, it didn't escape Daimon's eyes that Ryan's face twisted a bit when he compared him to Terry.

"Terry was an idiot, he was too prideful and those who outstand will always be targeted first, I prefer to pull the string behind the shadows, so I simply choose the best cover to do so, as for your question, besides my fool younger brother I never considered them family or anything, though I didn't mind sparing Mellie".

"Don't waste time, he is just stalling for time", reminded the pirate, just to see Ryan shaking his head.

"I know, this trial will still last more than thirty minutes and he can't leave this area, we'll still have twenty-five minutes after killing him", he said.

"Oh, it seems you got infected by Terry's attitude, if I remember correctly, I moped the floor with you and your whole team the last time we fought", said Daimon as he stretched his arms.

"Hmph, it will be different this time, my dear ancestor cover gave me the offensive means I was lacking back then…", as Ryan finished his words, his originally slim body grew taller and a small horn appeared in the middle of his forehead, his realm jumped all the way to the peak of the Mage Lord realm.

But it didn't stop there, green and gray mana particles rushed from all over the area, to gather around Ryan, meaning he had obtained a Manifestation Phenomenon, that was the end of his transformation, but it wasn't the end of the surprises.

The pirate grinned and then his pupils changed into those of a beast, crackles could be heard coming from his body as black plaques covered his arms, legs, neck and forehead, unlike Ryan, his change gave him a much more beast-like appearance, which is something Daimon has seen the pirates using before, they forcefully integrated a magic beast lineage into their bodies.

The result was a less refined version of the beast traits acquired when one's lineage reaches a 30% of concentration, which is what happened to Ryan and previously Terry, on the other hand this crude boosting has its advantages, it goes perfectly with knights as it increases the physical aspects more, as the pirate whose strength used to be quite far from Ryan's now more or less caught up to him.

That being said, Daimon could see the large quantity of stamina that the pirate was burning, compared to Ryan whose change was more stable.

"Nice tricks, they do resemble your owners, however you aren't better than Terry he was easy to deal with", mockingly said Daimon, referring to Marcus short tempered nature and Arlion's patient and wary way to do things.

Ryan's eyes glowed with hatred, the small narwhal horn in the middle of his forehead shone and he then extended his palm towards Daimon, the wind mana particles around him converged in his hand, a current of air, strong enough to be considered equal to the spell "Wind Cannon" was shot.

"Booom!", the area where Daimon was standing exploded due to the impact of the attack, raising a curtain of dust which engulfed everything nearby, normally the dust will spread but Ryan snapped his fingers and wind gathered to form a sphere around the dust to isolate Daimon.

Inside of the sphere, Daimon jumped to get out but his way was blocked by the pirate who was given an opening by Ryan manipulating the wind to let him enter.

"Where do you think you are going!", shouted the pirate with a hoarse voice, the disadvantage of this crude method of lineage assimilation was that the mind of the user was affected by the beastly instincts of the magic beast to which the blood belonged, but in this case the disadvantage was turned into a benefit as knights fought in close combat and fierceness helped, at least for the pirate it did.

The pirate reached his back and grabbed the Warhammer that he was carrying, to then swing it downwards to crush Daimon's head, at the same time, Ryan's clapped and the sphere contracted, applying pressure on those that were inside of it.

The Shooting Narwhal had the ability to produce "impulse" it was an advanced version of wind element, previously Ryan couldn't control wind only create impulse, but now he was able to use both, due to his lineage concentration increasing.

As for the pirate, the lineage he integrated into his body was that of some kind of crustacean, which increased his defense and strength overall, preventing the pressure created by Ryan's wind from crushing him, despite they being a team born out of convenience, they actually had a good synergy.

Ryan felt the huge impact on the wall of the sphere and he smirked as he reinforced the spell, to prevent the martial art used by the pirate from blowing a hole through it, the idea was to keep Daimon inside the sphere and use his wind to mess his movement and retrain him, while the pirate pummeled him to death.

Unfortunately for Ryan, plans rarely go as they are supposed to, his newly acquired beast instincts screamed in terror, but he had no time to react as a hand which felt heavy as a mountain was placed on his shoulder from behind.

He slowly looked backwards, just to see Daimon who was completely unscathed.

"Impossible, I can feel what is happening inside that sphere, that guy is fighting against you…", Ryan's words died in his throat, now that he tried to look at the situation inside the sphere, he didn't feel anything, as in there were no signs of life coming from it.

The sphere popped like a balloon and the sight of the pirate whose head was twisted backwards, was revealed, his expression of horror was hard to describe, it was as if he has seen his worst nightmare before life left his body.

Ryan's body shivered, he jumped to gain distance and then took out another thing from his pocket, it wasn't the needles he used to fight but a small silver and blue hand bell.

"Get away you monster, or I will…", the next thing Ryan knew was that his face was covered by darkness, as Daimon grabbed him and then smacked him against the ground.

"Boooom".

"Aghhh!".

An explosion followed by a pained scream could be heard echoing through the whole area, blood exploded out of Ryan's mouth, nose and ears due to the impact, but what hurt him the most was the hand with which he was holding that hand bell, or it would be more accurate to say the hand that used to hold that hand bell, since said hand was cleanly severed way from the rest of his body.

Daimon who was using his right foot to keep Ryan down, deactivated Core Synchrony and then snapped his fingers, the hand bell flew towards him, to land on his right hand.

The moment the hand bell was in Daimon's hand, his pupils contracted behind his mask, and the strength he was using to keep Ryan down, increased, making his ribs break on the spot.

"Aghhhh…", his scream was interrupted by Daimon firmly grabbing him by his neck and then lifting him so that he was directly facing Ryan.

"We are going to have a little conversation, regarding this treasure and that coin you used earlier", coldly said Daimon.

Ryan who was heavily breathing while blood was coming out of his mouth, mockingly smiled.

"You can't kill me here, otherwise the array I was given will eliminate you…", Ryan's eyes widened not only because Daimon tightened the grip on his neck, but because he saw broken red runes falling from the sky like rain.

A black one-edged sword which he never saw appearing earlier, descended from above and stopped floating next to his enemy.

"I was never worried about that coin's effect, Arlion might have given you a couple of tricks, but I have as much if not more than him, so from the very beginning the moment you saw me, you should have runaway", said Daimon as he grabbed Disaster with his free hand.

Seeing the golems starting to move again, Daimon walked towards them while holding Ryan with his right hand, and a smirk on his face as he said.

"Besides, who said I was going to be the one to kill you".