The rook's death had started a chain reaction, as the demon knights began to dissipate into a fine black dust. Soon, the only people left in the clearing were Darius and Evelyn. Battleborn too, if he counted as a person.

"Ahem User. I am right here you know?"

So she was.

Gripping the poleaxe in his hands, he noted with mild curiosity that it was starting to shimmer in and out of existence. A deeper inspection revealed its existence as a sacred gear.

"User, is you consume his eyes you might be able to wield the gear as he once had!"

Now that piqued his interest.

Walking over to Derrics head, Darius lifted it and plucked the eyes out. Rolling them in his hand, he slurped them down starting from the nerve. The main downside to the consumption of the organ, was the bursting of the vitreous fluid, as it would explode as soon as he started chewing. Almost like a gusher.

Swallowing the fluid, he felt a connection start to form between him and the poleaxe, no, Rhongomiant, and that was when things started getting funky.

The gear began to bug out, the shimmering effect strengthening and warbling as the weapon began to change forms. First the color changed, the gold color of the axe part shifting to a bright silver, the rest of the weapon took on a darker hue, an almost black color. Then the axe's shape changed, the once refined noble-looking blade warped to a far more gnarly looking one, with sharper edges and a serrated edge. There was now a pike at the end, which was significantly less gnarly, a simple half a foot or so of sharpened metal.

'CASI, explain.'

"Analyzing… got it! Sacred Gears are molded by their owner, changing to fit their soul and desires. Because of the sudden transfer of Rhongomiant from the rook's soul to yours, it didn't have time to go through the system God had put in place. As such, in order to fit its new user, the gear went through rapid adaptation to mold itself to you. Add in the strangeness that is your soul, and it seems that the weapon was… corrupted, for lack of a better word, by your soul."

'Huh… jackpot.'

Giving Rhongomiant a twirl, he called Battleborn over and gave him a once over. His armor was banged up, and there were slashes all over it. Still, he stood tall, not even showing any sort of fatigue or damage besides the aesthetic ones. That was good, cause this might hurt quite a bit.

Using the pike at the end, Darius stabbed Battleborn in the chest, and watched with rapt attention as the weapon began to sink into his chest, and the once damaged armor mended itself to perfection. Once the gear disappeared, Battleborn began to bulk up slightly, and Rhongomiant appeared in his hands.

'Awesome.'

Dismissing Battleborn, Darius made his way to the rook's body.

"Oh God, don't tell me you're gonna eat him too?"

Evelyn's disgust was candy to his eyes, but she had a point. It would take a little while to eat all of him, and it would be quite messy. It was time to adapt.

Darius changed the tendril arms on his back into mouths, each one with multiple rows of spikey teeth in order to get the organs, and created four more tendrils to act like large stomachs and consume the body far faster than if he were to do it himself.

"Oh my God that is so much worse! The fuck Hex!"

"Relax Evelyn, I was starting to feel a bit peckish that's all. I don't shame you in how you eat now do I?"

She gagged slightly, before turning to go to a nearby tree and vomit. Rude.

'Right, so now that that's done, I should start feeling the powerup in three, two, o- oh! Well that was quick.'

The sheer physical might that coursed through his body was almost orgasmic, the power of the rook piece pulling its weight and then some. The only other significant gain was the martial knowledge Derric had once wielded. It wouldn't prove all that useful to him, but Battleborn would find it quite useful.

"Are you gonna do that every time? Cause if so, I'd rather you give me a heads-up next time. That shit's nasty."

Her face was still pale, and she was panting like she had just ran a mile. It didn't stop her from glaring at him though.

"Oh wow… you actually beat Derric. I thought you two were done for. That's… great. Well, come on in. you still have three trials left."

The boy was upset, that much was obvious. Despite his attempts to hide the fact, he was still a child.

Darius laughed at the kid; this was shaping up to be a very interesting day.

…

The mood in the throne room was one of somber silence, the reality of the situation finally hitting his young king. Gerald wish he could say he told him so, but not even he had thought the humans would cause any trouble. Though the humanity in the male was questionable at best.

"He had tentacles Gerald. They looked just like the ones that other demon I made. Did he… eat its power?"

Yes, that had been a troubling theory, and meant that all of the opposition they sent his way would simply make the young man stronger.

"It would seem so my liege. That means that his… devouring of Derric has only made him that much stronger. My king, what do we do?"

Gerald knew the answer, but he had hope that asking the young king would force him to change his tactics. Perhaps even have them killed instead of this game of tradition.

"…We continue with the plan Gerald. You know that it's tradition, and dad always said that tradition and etiquette are what make a devil. At the very least, it's a good thing we only have material demons, else he'd be able to eat those too."

He simply nodded and smiled, unable to completely hide his pride at the conviction in the boy's voice. It seemed that he had payed attention to his lessons.

"Have you sent word to the twins of Derrics passing? They were quite close to him."

That seemed to take whatever wind was left in Ogmars sails away. He sagged slightly in his throne; guilt was evident within the boy.

"I'm… working on it. Gerald, can you do it actually? I don't wanna… see them cry and stuff."

"Of course, my liege, I will tell them of the grave news."

Walking down the carpet and out of the room, Gerald summoned a magic circle and waited for the twins to do the same.

"Heya Gary, whatcha need?"

"Hello there Catherine, is Katherine also listening?"

"It's Cat, and you know that. And hang on a sec, let's get Kate and make it a three-way."

He didn't bother deigning a response for that one.

"What do you need Cat and I for exactly? We're a bit busy guarding the next "trial" from those two humans."

Now came the hard part. "I wished to inform you that Derric has met his unfortunate demise at the hands of those two humans. Specifically, the male."

The silence on the other end was concerning, but it was soon replaced by the near silent sobs of what was more likely than not Catherine.

"I-I see. We'll keep an eye out, and make sure they pay. If you'll excuse me, I need to talk to Cat f-for a bit."

Katherine hung up, most likely to comfort her sister and grieve herself. He pitied them, but he had little time to do so. There was much to do. Such was the job of the king's helper, and he would do anything to help his king.

…

The castle entrance was large, larger than any other entrance she had ever seen. Despite the gothic exterior, the inside of the building was very homely. The wallpaper on the walls were deep red with mahogany panels at the bottom third of them, a thicker bit of wood acting like molding between the red and wood. The wooden floors were smooth and had an unnatural shine to them. The only thing that didn't fit, was the large banner hanging from the ceiling.

CONGRATS! WELCOME TO AKAZ CASTLE! IN ORDER TO GET TO THE SECOND TRIAL, YOU MUST FIND THE KEY FOR THE DOOR!

True to its words, there was a large door at the top of the staircase. The door itself looked more like a solid wooden gate than a door, and there was a large iron lock in the center of it.

"Screw that noise, Imma punch it."

Hex was probably still cocky from the battle with Derric, as it pushed her to the side and walked straight up to the door. Winding its arm back, it slammed forward with all the might it could muster and-

CRASH!

-was knocked back to the entrance as the door glowed on impact.

"Nice try dumbass. Now how about we go find this key?"

"That's… fair."

Hex groaned as it stood back up on its legs, dusting itself off from its tumble.

"So… where should we start Evelyn? The mysterious corridor to the left, the mysterious corridor to the right, or maybe we can go up the stairs and look through one of the mysterious corridors up there?"

She needed some alone time right now, cliches be damned.

"You take the left; I'll take the right. Once we finish up with those, we'll meet back here and go upstairs together."

Hex raised a brow and stared at her with a mixture of incredulousness and disappointment. 'Asshole.'

"Are you really gonna suggest we split up and search for clues? Seriously?"

"I need some time away from you right now, and why not here?"

Hex simply scoffed and rolled its eyes. "Whatever you say Fred."

It then left her in the entrance hall, whistling a jaunty tune.

'If I never see him again, I don't think I'd be all that sad.'

Turning around, Evelyn went down the right hallway. The color scheme was the same as in the entrance hall, but now there were paintings adorning the walls. The hallway itself wasn't very long, only about thirty feet down, and it ended with only a single door. It was the same brown as the wood paneling on the walls, like mahogany.

She grasped the doors handle and opened it. Stepping inside, Evelyn was mildly surprised to see an active fireplace in what seemed to be a large dining room. It's placement at the end of this corridor was a bit odd though, since this is usually something that would be closer to the entrance.

The room was large, more so than the space on the outside would permit. It was some Harry Potter shit, she deduced. Magic being used to make a room larger wasn't terribly uncommon for the rich. Hell, a few middle-class families could afford if they planned and budgeted smartly enough.

'Focus Evelyn, we've got shit to do.'

Right, getting back to her observation and exploration of the room, Evelyn walked down the dining room table, she made note of only four seats that were placed all the way at the end of the table, towards the fireplace. Whatever had happened, it was enough to either kill most of the residents or stop them from inviting people over. Perhaps both.

The rest of the room was fairly sparse, most of it covered in a light amount of dust, with the exception being the four chairs and a large painting on the end of the table closest to the entrance. The painting was almost sparkling due to how clean it was. On it were only two figures, a tall, thin man with white hair in a ponytail and burgundy eyes, and a smaller child with similar features, the main difference being the sheer concentration on his face.

It was that kid.

"What's taking you so long? I've been waiting for like twenty minutes!"

Evelyn jumped slightly at the unexpected voice of Hex, before processing what it said.

"What?! Bullshit! It's been like five minutes tops!"

Just as it was about to come back with a retort, Hex stopped. It closed its mouth and its eyes stopped focusing on her. Instead, it focused on the painting in front of her and frowned.

"The painting has some type of enchantment over it, making the affected party go into a trance. I leave you alone for not even an hour, and you're already springing booby traps."

She ignored the instinct to snark back, instead using her gear to sense the magic around the painting. It was faint, to the point that if she weren't explicitly looking for it then she would have never seen it, but Hex was right. There was an enchantment on the painting. She had no idea what type, but going by her little trip, it had to be some type of ensnaring enchantment. Hex was never gonna let her live that down.

"That's besides the point. What did you find during your search?"

It chuckled slightly, before sighing and answering her question. "Not much, just what looked like to be some type of living room. The layout of this area is weird as all hell. A whole corridor wasted on a single room, not once, but twice? Not to mention that you'd think there'd be a kitchen nearby since the dining room is right here, but nope. Nothing."

So Hex noticed it too. The area felt… incomplete. Like someone was designing it and stopped halfway. But if they stopped here…

"Hex, we should go upstairs. If the area here is unfinished and messily put together, then its probably safe to say that the key isn't here."

The look of surprise was both satisfying, and mildly upsetting.

"Not bad Evelyn, not bad at all. Let's go find the room with the most effort then, shall we?"

She nodded and led the charge back to the entrance hall and up the stairs. Looking to the right of the locked door, she saw a hallway similar to the ones before it, with only one door at the end, but it was very different. It looked rushed, the red color was a bit off, a tad too light when compared to the downstairs walls, and the wooden divider between the wood paneling and the red wallpaper was crooked and a bit uneven. The paneling itself looked a bit course, though only in some spots. Whoever made it was hurrying to get it done.

"Evelyn, I think I found our room."

Looking to where Hex was referring to, Evelyn saw the disparity between the two corridors immediately. This hallway seemed to only have one door as well, but the walls were far more neat. The red was closer to a burgundy here and went surprisingly well with the mahogany paneling. The wood molding-like material was smooth and there were small swirls in the material. The paneling was smooth throughout and shined like it was freshly waxed.

"It's pretty I get it, but can we get a move on already? I wanna test out my new strength on something."

Hex will always be hard to get along with it seems.

Walking towards the door, she noted that it had small accents throughout the wood. At least, it did before Hex kicked the door down in his impatience.

It was an office, with a desk at the back and multiple shelves with books on them to the sides. The color scheme remained the same, with the addition of burgundy carpeting to go along with the wallpaper. It was sparse, though there was a noticeable amount of care put into what was there. Papers were all over the desk, and the books had a slight messiness to them that could be mistaken for natural.

Evelyn started going through the papers, discarding what was unnecessary. 'Budgeting, taxes, budgeting, birthday card, someone spelling chaos with a k, a letter from an Aunty Katerea, taxes, picture of-'

"Hey Evelyn, look what I found."

Hex sounded far too satisfied with itself for it to be anything good.

In its hands was a calendar, more specifically however…

"Seriously Hex? A swimsuit calendar?"

It seemed offended at the idea. "This isn't just any old swimsuit calendar, this is a limited addition Serafall Leviathan, swimsuit calendar. It says it on the front."

It did say that at the front of the calendar. What did catch her eye though, was the large golden key just hanging of the side of the calendar.

"Oh yeah, that was there too. I'm keeping the calendar by the way."

God damn it Hex.

…

I figured it'd be better to space out the big fights a bit, that way the arc lasts a bit longer. I don't have anything else to say other than to have a good one you (I'm assuming) decent people, and thanks for reading.