Silva and Videl returned and informed the others about the path they could use so the bandits wouldn’t detect them. Silva then led the group to the other side of the mountain while at the same time scouting the area. He showed his ability to the fullest and led dozens of people to the summit without being seen by the bandits.

When they were close to the summit, the sun had set, and it was getting really dark, and they couldn’t use the torches to avoid being detected. They could see the light in the distance, which meant they were close to the bandits’ hideout.

A few adventurers scouted the area around the hideout, which was a massive flat land in between two summits with a small lake. A perfect place for people to hide and live unnoticed. They looked at the bandits who were lazing around and counted the numbers while they looked for the prisoners.

After ten minutes of scouting the hideout, they came back and informed everyone that there were more than a hundred bandits there. They also found prisoners in cages, including children, where one of them might have been the daughter that the knights were looking for.

“Let’s wait until late at night,” The knight captain said with his arms crossed. “We don’t know anything about our enemy. There’s a chance that a few of them have been possessed by demons. We need to kill as many as we can before we fight them since we all know those possessed bodies are strong,” he explained and looked at everyone.

The captain created a plan where the mages would take the high ground and cover the knights and the others during the ambush. He wanted the mages to bombard the tents as soon as they managed to secure all the prisoners.

After a long briefing, everyone rested until late at night to recover their stamina since they had just climbed the mountain. They were anxious, but they were confident with their numbers and experiences.

Silva was checking his sword and making sure it was sharp when he realized he couldn’t find Videl anywhere. He wanted to find him, but the knight captain had ordered everyone to get ready. Everyone moved to their designated position and waited for the signal.

“Go!” The knight captain shouted quietly and ran toward the bandits’ camp.

All the knights and the adventurers ambushed the camp and killed the bandits who were asleep. They managed to kill a lot of them unnoticed, and they immediately rescued the prisoners.

The knight captain looked at all the prisoners, but he couldn’t find the girl he was looking for. When he was about to order his knight to keep searching, he saw all the knights were frozen still with their blank eyes.

“What are you guys standing there for? Keep searching for the girl!” The knight’s captain ordered.

Even after he said those words, the Knights didn’t move a muscle. He was about to grab one of the knights, but he heard a scream from behind. He turned around and saw the adventurer being killed by another adventurer.

He was confused by what happened until another adventurer killed another adventurer. He thought those adventurers were betraying him until a sword stabbed him in the back and pierced through his chest. He was shocked as he slowly looked down, and then another sword pierced through his chest.

“What… are you… doing…” The knight captain looked at his knights who had stabbed him.

The knights’ eyes suddenly turned black, and they pushed the swords even deeper into the knight captain’s body. They had been possessed by demons, which answered all his questions.

The knights that were still themselves swung their swords and killed the possessed knights. Unfortunately, they couldn’t do anything for their captain because he had no chance of surviving.

“Find… the girl…” The knight captain said weakly as he grabbed the blades that pierced through his chest.

Silva realized what had happened and knew that the whole situation had become a complete mess. He didn’t know which ones were his allies anymore, but knowing the knight captain only cared for the girl, he decided to look for her even though he barely knew what she looked like.

He avoided everyone and chose to be alone while looking for the girl. The mages began to bombard the camp with spells and destroyed the camp slowly. It was a perfect opportunity for him because the mages distracted the bandits’ attentions.

…

After looking around for almost ten minutes, Silva couldn’t find the other prisoners. The only place left that he hadn’t checked was the big tent in the center of the camp. He didn’t have to make any guesses about that tent and knew it belonged to a leader that had been possessed by a powerful demon.

He was thinking of leaving and forgetting about the whole thing because the money wasn’t worth the risk. He noticed something unnerving, and it was the silence. He hid behind a tent and looked at his surroundings, but he didn’t hear anything.

“(Did everyone die? Or did demons possess their bodies?)” Silva thought as he gulped nervously. “(Am I the only one left? Am I seriously alone here?)” His heart was racing uncontrollably.

“Fuck this, I’m leaving…” Silva muttered under his breath as he made his way out of the camp.

He looked around, and it was eerie and disturbing because he couldn’t find any dead bodies. There were only traces of blood, but no bodies, which made him feel extremely uneasy. Suddenly, he heard a loud hiss right next to his left ear that made him jolt and fall on his back.

He crawled on his back as he looked around, wondering where the sound was coming from. He didn’t see anyone around him, and every hair on his body was rising, and tears of fear lingered in his eyes. Suddenly, he felt legs hitting his back when he crawled back, and his body was frozen still like a statue before he slowly lifted his head.

“You’re still alive?” Videl looked down at Silva with his brows raised.

“Y—you too?” Silva asked in his shaky and ragged breath. “We… we should leave this place…” He said as he slowly got up from the ground.

“Leave? Are you sure about that? Look around you,” Videl crossed his arms.

Silva turned around to see where Videl was staring. He was then shocked and petrified when he saw the knights, adventurers, and bandits staring at him with their eyes as dark as the abyss. They all had blank expressions, but those eyes were mesmerizing and terrifying at the same time.

He saw the knight captain who was supposed to be dead standing there among the knights. He couldn’t believe it, and he couldn’t believe how terrifying the powers of the demons were.

“It seems you’re the only one left. They can’t possess your body for some reason,” Videl said as he glanced at Silva.

Silva looked down at his neck and pulled out the necklace. He looked at it and remembered it was a gift from his late mother when he was still a small kid.

“It’s a charm, a talisman that my late mother gave me,” Silva held the necklace tightly.

Videl looked at the necklace and noticed the tiny bit of divine power inside each link. He slowly reached for the necklace and touched it, but nothing happened. He was too powerful for that little amount of divine energy to feel pain from touching it.

He glanced at the possessed bodies and could see the demons within those bodies were just weaklings. He looked a bit excited because he could devour a lot of demons, not to mention the one that led those demons was a powerful one.

“(Oh… How I miss this kind of feelings…)” Videl’s pupils shrunk, but then he calmed his excitement down. “It’s better for you to stay near me,” Videl said as he pulled his sleeves calmly.

“What do you mean? Are you going to fight these demons?!” Silva asked as he looked around as more and more bandits came and surrounded them.

“What did I tell you back then in the pub?” Videl asked as he lifted his arms and spread them open.

Silva furrowed his brows and tried to remember while he was still anxious about the whole situation. He then remembered what Videl had said that stood out in his head.

“You enjoy killing…” Silva muttered under his breath.

“That’s right!” Videl shouted in excitement as he clapped his hand. “I do enjoy killing!” He grinned and spread his arms again.

All the bodies around them suddenly caught on fire. The fire wasn’t red, orange, yellow, or blue, but it was dark purple. Silva witnessed how the bodies melted in an instant and couldn’t do anything to stop those flames.

Silva could hear deafening screams and screeches that he had to cover his ears and scream in pain. He didn’t know what had happened, but he wished that it would stop because it drove him insane.

Videl was devouring all the demons and the souls they took. He felt the hunger within him was being satiated and made him even hungrier at the same time.

“More… I need more…” Videl said as he grinned widely.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep