Supreme Monarch

After cleaning their dirtied clothes with a basic clean spell, the 14 highest ranked members of the Alcar family lowered their heads, then said their thanks to the Demob god. They then took their seats at the round stone table placed at the center of the room.

This included the Great Demon Lord of the Alcar family himself, Cain Lyra Alcar.

At this table, everyone was considered equal before the watchful gaze of the demon god. There were no superiors or inferiors here in the holy sanctum.

They were all collaborators in their servitude to the demon god with each of them having been blessed with a divine mission. Here, even the Great Demon Lord himself, would not receive any special treatment.

"Well then, Goodmorning ladies and gentlemen, by the grace of our God, Lord Apollyon, let us begin the meeting."

After Cain had declared the start of the meeting, the organizer of this meeting, the Pillar of Shadows, Ike Okon Lemande, stood up from his high black chair and spoke as several documents suddenly appeared while floating in the air in front of him.

"Our first topic is the seizure of the Demon King's castle as well as the surrounding areas as the heart of a supposed brand new Great family's territory by the self-proclaimed Great Demon Lord, Ty Falls Darknar, a fortnight ago."

There was nothing that could possibly be any more important than the sudden advent of this mysterious behemoth that is believed to be in cahoots with either one of the Great Five or the seven primordials.

However, far too few people knew the details of the situation. Most of what they knew was little more than speculations and hearsay, news that had traveled through countless mouths. Combined with the rapid spread of exaggerated rumors amongst the commoners, it was hard to filter the lies from the truth.

Most of the information they knew now had been gained from the spies they had sent to Paragon city and that did not include any information about the origin of this new demon lord or how he was able to bypass the barrier protecting the Darknar castle.

This was why their scouts had yet to make any drastic movements in the city had they had limited their normally weekly reports.

For starters, they now knew that this person was a male demon noble at the very least. That was something they could respect, he was a magic caster capable of using spatial magic. That he had up to seven or eight demigods or demigod level fighters serving under him and so on.

What they lacked was the more crucial information that would give them the advantage in this situation. Information like who was behind the sudden rise of this demon lord. Such a powerful being could not go unnoticed for so long.

Someone with invaluable resources must've nurtured him for all those years, keeping him hidden until they were ready to strike. Such a task was impossible for a regular noble family to accomplish so the only viable suspects were the seven primordials and the other Great Families.

That was unless they wanted to consider the possibility of the elves getting involved, or worse case, those insignificant humans.

Ike, who commanded the information bureau, reported these details in his capacity as the meeting's organizer.

Just then, someone spoke out:

"I knew we shouldn't have let it happen, we should have intervened in that war instead of just relying on those two worthless worms!"

One of the six pillars voiced their opinion and immediately, another retorted, and soon, the room would steadily break out into a heated debate for a while.

"…What the hell are you going on about? Open battle against a magic caster who controls so many demigod-level fighters is extremely dangerous. Didn't we all agree on that earlier? You might have objected then, but don't try to overturn our previous decision… Although, I didn't think he would actually establish a new family of his own, and using the name of the late Demon King no less."

The group nodded one after the other.

"What does the Morningstar plan to do? They didn't seem too enthused about sending representatives to that war even though they had eventually sent over a devil. In the end, that devil had ended up defecting to the enemy's side. You might even say that was planned, so does that mean they're officially collaborators now? Or did those vampires somehow end up getting controlled?"

"I doubt it. The court mage, Silver's there. Besides, the mind is their domain. If something exists that could control them then we wouldn't be able to defend against it."

"Then, I guess we made a mistake in thinking that lazy Vampire Lord could be trusted."

"…Well, a more important problem is the fact that he's one of the few talented individuals who isn't being properly utilized. Should we begin the plan to seize control of the Morningstars? I heard he's moved his research center to the moon. It might be worth learning what he's hidden there."

"Then–"

*Clap!

After a brief clapping of hands, the debate which was about to heat up promptly cooled down as everyone's attention shifted in the same direction.

"–Little Roland Quiver, our head divinator was observing the battle between the Undead army and the new Demon Lord. However, there's been a slight problem, so the report was delayed. I beg your forgiveness."

The problem in question probably referred to the fact that the kid had locked himself in his room lazing about with those new figurines that had been circulating the black market lately, due to that he had been in there for quite some time. At least, that was what everyone thought.

"Then, we shall distribute the records of what he saw. These have not been verified by other dictators or crossed checked with the memories retrieval unit. They're just his account of what he saw of the Demon Lord's army at the battlefield."

'Why do all the talented ones have to be the weirdest of the bunch, everyone thought that but did not voice it out loud. They then cast those thoughts aside and took the records and studied them.

They only stopped after the last piece of paper. Their hands trembled as they went over the same part over and over again.

They all had the same stiff expressions and their faces slowly grew pale the more they tried to understand what was written on that page. A thrill of cold washed over their backs as cold sweat appeared on their foreheads.

Ike smiled as he saw the changes in their expressions. He had been through the same thing that was happening to them now, and he was glad because misery loved company.

And then, as though to represent everyone else, Cain shouted. His mouth opened so wide as his fist slammed into the stone table but it did not crack. Not because his strike was weak but simply because the stable was heavily reinforced with Magic metal and enchantment.

"Impossible! That's impossible, how could such a thing?! Blasphemy!!"

"I told you earlier, didn't I? This is just a description of what he claimed to have seen."

Cain shut up in the face of Ike's cold response. Such an attitude to the Demon Lord would've not been tolerated in another family but in this room, everyone was truly equal.

Cain panted heavily as though he had just run a marathon across the galaxy. As he struggled to get his breathing back under control, Deelie decided to ask another question, to see if someone shared her opinions.

"Can you say that again? Is this actually real?"

"If everyone here still believes the skills of "Rolan Quiver", then it is."

With pained looks on their faces, they all looked back to the papers they were holding with the same expression and it did not change.

They had all stopped at the same place — the Appearance of a universal entity such as the Grim Reaper even though it had only been a projection of its powers and authority.

While they could somewhat understand the Annihilation of the undead army, even the defeat of all those demigod representatives was bearable. However, this was a different story.

After all, that was the embodiment of death itself they were talking about, a concept of the universe's very foundation. It didn't matter if its strength had been greatly reduced by their descent into the physical plane utilizing a cursed item, its might was still leaps and bounds beyond what a demigod or transcended demigod was capable of.

Yet, such a conceptual being was capable of almost rivaling the might of their god. The demon god Apollyon. Such a being was actually defeated in battle by not only this Self-proclaimed Great Demon Lord but by his subordinates as well.

Ridiculous.

It didn't matter if they had used a sealing crystal in the end. The fact that they were even able to stand against it to such extents was completely ludicrous.

"Was he mistaken? Maybe the Demon Lord noticed our surveillance and used illusions to confuse us."

Caz put that possibility forward as he stretched out his withered, branch-like arms.

"Oh", the surrounding people murmured as they mused about that possibility, but Ike shattered that possibility.

"Even if the information has its share of minor inaccuracies, it's impossible for the one is chosen by the demon god to be placed in charge of providing intelligence support to his team. There is no way he could have been mistaken. Besides, we provided him with several of our family's sacred artifacts as this was of the utmost importance."

Ike's words were answered by several defeated sighs as everyone tiredly lowered their heads.

All they could do was acknowledge the point in voices full of fatigue, and then they continued discussing the matter.

"What should we do? What is the best course of action for ourselves, as the protectors of the demon race? What can we do about so many beings capable of toppling gods, albeit their avatars?"

"This simply means we cannot refute his rights to the Darknar region and I do not believe any Great would be willing to support such a threat to the throne. The only viable option would be the seven primordials as they have the most to gain."

"That may be true. But the possibility that there is no such backer still exists no matter how improbable it is. The real question is what this demon lord plans to do with the current area under his control. I heard we've already lost our stake in the darknar forest as his forces are expanding rapidly."

"So he plans on laying claim to the entirety of the Darknar region. How truly troublesome. Quite a fair percentage of our region's finances come from the resources we gain from the resources we mine from the Darknar region so this will be a terrible blow for us."

Everyone had a sour expression as they pondered on the gravity of the situation, thinking of the various methods and solutions from their seemingly endless questions when the pillar of Earth suddenly thought it something and spoke.

"Surely not as much as the Brimstone family though. That family's barren lands have almost completely relied on the resources they gain from Darknar. Mines."

After that, the Headmaster of the Magic institute suddenly chummed in after remaining silent for a while.

"Indeed... if we move quickly, we might be able to take advantage of the situation there in our plans to usurp the other families."