Haikou and Max travelled through the forest hoping to find Rex so that they wouldn´t need to hire a mercenary that they didn´t trust for the tournament, but it seemed that Rex was faster than they had expected, they were almost at the town that lay far up in the mountains and the closest they had come to finding him was a small paper that said "5 reasons why Max and Haikou are dead to me". Never the less they were sure that Rex was lonely, hungry, friendless, and longing for a conversation with a person that wasn´t locked into ones continence forever.

The duo was right about some of the things, but wrong about some others. They were right that Rex was hungry, but he wasn´t friendless, they had guessed that he was lonely, which he wasn´t, though he really needed to be able to talk with someone that didn´t follow him wherever he went.

But Rex was quite nervous himself, he was dehydrated, freezing because he had eaten all that snow, and he needed to find at least two other members of his group that could help him win the tournament so he could be able to return to his original body. Because when you're talking to someone who can read your mind there really isn´t any way to say that that person or creature sucks.

Yawa Raf

Castacien ran into the throne room of Grenadeel.

Castacien:"Master we have seenthe enemies Max, Haikou, and Rex, if we are to destroy them we can do it now if we attack them without them knowing of it".

Grenadeel:"I know that my well tasting when made with butter friend, but we will leave them alone for now, I have my own plans for them, tell my army that if they touch any of them I will destroy every single one of them".

Castacien:"But master, if i may say so, you know what they are capable of doing, they have the last shards, if we kill them now no one will be in your way from destroying all of the pity full humans, if they get the life shard there´s no telling what could happen".

Grenadeel responded to this by walking slowly down to Castacien as if he would say "Your right", but instead of saying that he simply grabbed one of the crustacean's 4 arms and grabbed two of them, he slowly began crushing them as the Crab wiggled in pain.

"I´m sorry my lord, I should not have mixed myself in your decisions, I am but a mere crab that comes from a family of 500 that all wait for me to help you conquer the world, please don´t make chowder out of me".

Grenadeel released his grasp on three of the in all 4 claws, but he kept the last one.

Castacien:"Thank you my master, when I return I will tell my family about a great demon that rules the world and that is graceful and innocent to every demon in this great...".

Suddenly and without warning Grenadeel smashed the gigantic claw while ripping off his arm, the gigantic assault of damage was so great that not a single drop of blood fell from the huge wound. Grenadeel then began devouring the claw as Castacien slithered away in deep sorrow, fear and pain.

Grenadeel:"Let this be a lesson to you Castacien, your arm will grow out again and it will be fast but extremely painful, you made me sound as if I was some kind of benevolent king that only wished the best for his people, only those worthy may join me, don´t ever pray for your life again, or I will devour you entirely".

Castacien:"Yes master".

Meanwhile

Rex had been walking for several days without end to the city Yawa Raf where the tournament was to be held, he was on the verge of collapse when he finally regretted leaving his friends and realized that he had been kind of a jerk. Unluckily a huge storm brewed at that very moment, the winds flew with several hundred miles an hour and the snow fell in a gigantic mass covering the poor boy in less than 15 seconds.

Later back in Yawa Raf

Grenadeel watched at his city getting covered by the white powder known as snow, the people in his city all sat in their houses next to the fireplaces; Grenadeel was only evil towards the people that didn´t obey him, every man in the town was a soldier and every woman was a healer.

A snow owl demon flew into the room shaking his wings free of snow that had gathered on them from the storm.

Grenadeel:"General Icle, I want you to retrieve a demon for me".

Icle:"Shall I bring him dead or alive".

Grenadeel:"Alive, I want to make him the leader of my army, that way i might be able to defeat my enemies without having to do anything".

Icle:"Yes my lord". And then he flew off.

Icle was the leader of the Grenadeel´s air force that consisted of Icle, two carrier pigeons, and several uncountable hundreds of small tame humming birds with beaks that can pierce threw metal.

But the local point is that Icle has the command over a small army, but only he is brave/stupid enough to fly in a snowstorm as powerful and merciless than this, but Icle hadn´t been hired because he was trustworthy so Grenadeel often tested his loyalty on mission like these.

Icle landed next to a large lump of snow and brushed it off to revel a severely frozen Rex, Rex couldn´t of course really die because he was a suit of armour, but the joints that connected his legs and arms had completely frozen over turning him into a living suit of ice that was unable to move. Icle carefully planted his claws into the shoulders of Rex and flew off with the 200 pound heavy piece of iron, Flying became easier and very much harder, he could now fly more directly because the armour helped him gain weight to not blow away, but the weight made him rest every 10 minutes to get his breath back.

But he did manage to bring Rex back to the castle, and the first thing that Grenadeel did was to return Rex´s body to him using the Life shard that he had in his possession, but he also planted a puppet spell on him that turned him into a zombie that only obeyed Grenadeel. Grenadeel had big plans and currently the only thing that stood between him and ultimate power was Max and the shards that he owned.

To Be Continued