Mind Demon's Path of Domination

\'What the heck is going on?\' he asked Reol\'ran, incredulous.

He had killed Hanmo! Hanmo had become a Kill Slave and a Kill Slave died when its master died. He had even gotten the self-proclaimed Ice God\'s share of Soul Sphere upon the man\'s death. So, just how could Hanmo be here?

\'Try scanning his stats,\' Reol\'ran said, sounding equally baffled.

Mark did as told.

No.

\'I can\'t scan his stats. It\'s as if he doesn\'t exist.\'

\'Weird,\' she said, frowning.

The door to the room was pushed open and Bale walked in. He had a smoking cigar between his lips and wore a navy blue suit. Behind him followed the twins, Tiger and Leon. The two kids immediately became the center of attention of everyone--another two A-rank Hunters.

X-Jerk was especially looking at them with wide eyes. But silent, he just sat down.

The twins ran to Mark\'s side and sat on the seats to his left, Yuri occupied the right one.

"Now that Bale is here," Hanmo said, "all available A-rankers are here now. The meeting can commence."

The dark-suited, masked trio from the disgusting faction grunted at him taking leadership but didn\'t do anything more than that and just silently waited for the meeting to commence. Cowards, Mark thought. Shouldn\'t they ask Hanmo why he had been so absent?

Understanding that he was just complaining like a child, he looked around and took note of everyone. There were three factions. The Righteous Faction, The Neutral Faction, and the Evil Faction.

The Righteous Faction had Hanmo, Yamuna, and Franklin. The Neutral Faction had Bale, Reema, X-Jerk, and Siddique. The Evil Side had the three masked people whom nobody knew the names of.

Then there were the three new A-rankers: Yuri and the Twins. And then there was Mark, in Hailen\'s form, shamelessly the weakest, ignored by almost everyone. Even Hanmo didn\'t look at him for long.

Bale asked, "Hanmo, I thought you died."

"Well, apparently, I didn\'t."

Yamuna, the Mass Healer, beamed and said, "This is not a personal meeting. The world\'s safety relies on us, so let\'s cooperate and come to an agreement. Then, we will head to the battle three days from now."

"Why are we this rushed?" Hanmo asked. "I don\'t see why we shouldn\'t train these twins and the silent scientist over there. I could train them, help them be better. If none of you have the wish to, that is.."

Yuri rubbed her nose while the Twins awkwardly looked away.

"I have no rush," Bale said, a menacing grin on his face. "It\'s the three masked men. Tell them your complaints--if it had gone according to my plan, we would have only attacked two months from now."

"Oh?" Hanmo squinted. "What did they do?"

Yamuna explained. Now that Hanmo was here, she had more aura to her. "They say that we have to attack now or they won\'t cooperate. If we were to drag this out longer, they apparently won\'t be a part of it. Why? I don\'t know."

The masked woman placed her dark nailed hand on the table.

"Well. We either attack now or never," she said, sneering.

Hanmo chuckled. "Don\'t I know you, woman?" He shook his head. "They just want a reason to gain more authority among us A-rankers. To show that you matter--that you three are the most important of all."

The three stared at Hanmo ominously.

"Well, where is the Contract Hunter? Only if she came can we come to an agreement."

Again, the door of the room opened a woman walked in. Her movement was unnatural and eerie, her appearance unkempt. Contract Hunter--Lady Shuuma.

"I\'d have liked a more flashy entrance," she said, walking stiffly to sit on the seat next to Bale.

...

It took some time for everyone to settle and calm down. Then, the meeting began. At first, it was a long three hours of contract processing.

The Hunters--no matter their Faction--all began to sign the contract one by one. Its clauses were simple, from now on till the end of the assault against the Boss Demon, none of the Hunters were allowed to betray the team\'s interest. Yes, they could not desert from the scene once the battle actually began.

They were allowed to have thoughts of betrayal, but not allowed to take action on it.

Yuri also had to sign it. Now, she officially had been dragged into the battle. She couldn\'t back down.

Hanmo signed the contract after looking over it once and everyone else followed soon after. Even the three masked members didn\'t make anything more than a sneer before they signed it.

"At least," Siddique said, smiling. "None of us can betray each other until this is all over now."

The evil faction looked pissed off but they didn\'t comment on it. Now, they were the weakest faction.

"Now that the trust issue is over, let\'s go over the plan for the raid itself," Yamuna said. She turned on the video projector on the ceiling and projected the image of a map onto one side of the wall.

Mark looked at it but more than half of his attention was still on Hanmo. The man hadn\'t recognized that Mark now resided inside Heilan. Or was this even truly Hanmo? Why couldn\'t he read the man\'s status when he could read every other A-ranker\'s?

"This is the map of where the Boss Demon resides," Yamuna said. She changed the image into the image of a bus-sized demon--the image was super unclear amidst destruction and dust. "And this is the Boss Demon itself."

Everyone grew silent.

"We have 13 A-rankers on our side," Yuri said. "Aren\'t we at a crippling advantage?"

Yamuna sighed. "Miss Scientist missed something. The Boss is a Dungeon Demon and one of its abilities--demonic tricks as we have learned--is Demon Summoning. It has an incredibly loyal Tier 2 Demon always on its side, so it isn\'t alone to begin with."

Yuri frowned. "So it isn\'t one versus fourteen but two versus fourteen. Still, aren\'t we at an advantage?"

"You say that because you haven\'t really fought a Tier 2 Demon," Hanmo said.

Yuri raised her eyebrows.

Yamuna nodded. "Hanmo is correct. All of us, from Elder Reema, Bale, even the Three Masked Hunters. We have all had at least one encounter with the Boss Demon--we have tried to kill it twice; failed miserably just as many times."

Three Masked Hunters--the three hunters wearing mask from the \'disgusting faction\', as termed by Reema--nodded. "Indeed, we have all faced it. It\'s not your average demon; Tier 2 demons are different to begin with."

"What abilities does it have?" Yuri asked, biting her nails and looking at the map.

"It has five normal abilities in total--six if we count Soul Devouring," Yamuna said. "Like all other Dungeon Demons we have seen across the years, Dungeon Creation and Demon Summoning are two of its abilities. Then, it has three other abilities which are all equally strong but that\'s not the worst of all things. The Boss has an ability that\'s not any of the 5 I already mentioned.

An ability that is not a demonic trick."

"Close your ears, don\'t listen to what she is saying," said Reol\'ran. "She might end up telling you how Ultimate Demonic Arts work based on their own thoughts and if you understand it from the words of others, you will lose your precious chance at sudden enlightenment when you figure it out yourself."

Mark closed off his ears immediately. He only opened them back when he understood that the Hunters had moved on to a different topic.

"The plan as of now is that--the Three Masked Hunters, Franklin, and the twins will handle the subordinates of the Boss Demon including the Tier 2 Demon servant." Yamuna looked at the Twins, eyes limpid and sad. "I would have never wished children like you to participate in war, hadn\'t the world not been at stake. But now, the world needs you."

She nodded resolutely. "Once the war ends, I will do any one thing you ask of mefor my own conscience. Anything that doesn\'t go against it, I mean."

The twins both blushed and looked away, holding each other\'s hands tightly. They were very nervous, shy, reserved. But now, they had a world of responsibility.

"As I said," Yamuna continued, firming her tone. "The Masked Hunters, the Twins, and Franklin will focus on the underlings." She looked around. "Hanmo, Elder Reema, Bale, Siddique, X-Jerk, and the Scientist will focus on the Boss itself. I myself will act as the healer for everyone.

The goal is to kill the Boss more than anything, as the moment it dies, every other demon will lose the shelter of the Mega-Dungeon."

"Wouldn\'t the Angels enter this world when so many Demons die at once?" Mark asked.

Everyone grew silent again.

It was Hanmo who replied.

"The Angels won\'t appear if there is no threat for them to deal with. Not that they don\'t want to come here, but because the Will of the Hunter World would immediately close off any connection they could use to enter."

"How do you know that?" asked the Masked Woman eerily.

"All of us knew it long ago," Grandma Reema sneered. "There had been a Hunter once with the ability to converse with the Will of the World. A prophet of the Will. She told us about the angels, demons, and the Will itself--and also gave us a mission."

Mark\'s eyes shined. That was new to him.

"Mission?" The Masked Woman frowned, enraged. "Why haven\'t we three been a part of this whole thing? Are we not Hunters of this world?"

Reema continued calmly: "If we save the Hunter World from the Mega-Dungeon, we will all be rewarded greatly. The moment the Prophet had conversed with the Will directly, she died and we saw no value in telling you three about that old conversation."

"And you tell now," the Masked Woman chortled. "Is this the Carrot for the Stick? AM I to work hard for this reward?"

"Yes, if you want the rewards, work hard to make this a success," Reema replied.

The Masked Woman snorted and looked away.

Once again, all of their eyes focused on the map.

Yamuna continued her briefing.

"The battlefield is in the center of a small forest. There is also a..." She paused. "Also another factor to consider is the Gate to the Demon World in that area. Any time, another Demon could walk out of that Gate and ruin everything for us."

"Will the underling Demons of the Boss not try to run into the Gate if it is at a disadvantage when we fight it?" Leon, the younger of the Twins, asked innocently. "The Boss doesn\'t seem like it would run but the underlings might."

"Ohw, don\'t worry about that." Yamuna smiled at the boy and the boy blushed like a girl. "The Demons get a contract mission from the Will of the Demon World before they enter this world. Before they complete the mission, they can\'t return to the Demon World."

"What kind of mission?"

"No idea, but that\'s how it goes."

Mark knew what kind of mission it was.

It was a mission to conquer at least one Nation in this World. He had to do that in order to go back to the Demon World--and if he did, he would be rewarded for that with a Seal of Destiny and a Portal Key to another world.

...

The meeting lasted till night but when the important things had been decided, Mark and Yuri left; they understood what their roles were supposed to be two days later, knowing that was enough.

Both of them had grim faces.

As the jeep moved into a garage, Mark looked at the steering wheel, silent.

Yuri looked at him.

"What\'s going on, you had been really silent," she said.

Mark turned to look at her.

"I had killed Hanmo. I confirmed his death."

Yuri started. "Then.."

"I have no idea what is going on. But somehow, he is here. And now the plans can\'t be changed, three days from now, the attack begins."

Yuri didn\'t involve herself in the conversation any more than that.

She had a Contract binding her. She couldn\'t act or talk on betrayal and Mark seem to have a plan for it.