Chapter 222 - The Meeting (2)

(Jane's PoV)

"Welcome, my fellow Masters." He said with his old and rough voice after he finished looking at us one by one. "It's nice to meet you all again after our last meeting decades ago. I see new faces and old ones. Hopefully we can work together in harmony to maintain world's peace." He smiled amiably.

"Since we are going to talk about something in the past, because some people here are new and young, it's best to have our Advisors with us here. What do you say?"

I nodded my head, expressing my agreement. With Siji here, I could feel safer.

Everyone had tacit understanding about the others, and without any command, the advisors appeared one by one behind us.

San was standing behind the old man, which meant the old man was the Master of Merapi Army. Honestly, he didn't look like a native Javanese since Merapi was located in Java Island. He looked more like a Chinese or maybe Korean or Japanese since he had small eyes. However, his sophisticated look made all of those insignificant.

The source of power supporting the army wouldn't choose someone only because of his origins. As long as that person fit the criteria, no matter who you were or where you came from, you would still be chosen to be the Master.

"First Advisor, long time no see." The advisor next to me warmly greeted Siji. He was a mature man around thirty to forty years old before he died, I assumed. Siji was obviously a lot younger than him in appearance but who knew which era they were reborn as a soul.

"Tenth Advisor, long time no see." Siji greeted him back with a neither warm nor cold attitude.

I arched my eyebrows in helplessness. Siji always maintained his detach personality when he dealt with things not related to the army. However, in front of us, we knew how warm he could be. Since we were in a meeting, there was no way he would act like he always did in front of us.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, now let's get to the main topic." The old man's face turned even more solemn. "Just in case not everyone notices about it, I need to remind you all that… that time is drawing near. There is a report from people living near Merapi Mountain about anomaly happened in that village. Although the occurrence rate was still low, but it was no doubt the work of those demons. That place is supposed to be safe, if not the safest, since it's located near Merapi Army, but somehow those strange phenomena occurred there with one similarity; all victims were the ones who had gone into the mountains. Some of them even claimed that they saw entities in the mountain."

"Those people are the ones who had lived their lives in the mountain. They know about the mountain like the back of their hands. They even know the entities living in the mountain, but they said the ones they saw were not the usual ones. There was something different that they couldn't identify from them."

"It could only mean one thing; the ones they saw were not ghosts, but demons."

Gasps filled the room as their faces turned stern. Everybody had that serious expression on their faces as they listened to the old man recounting about what had happened while all I could was to think about one thing.

Were the demons that frightening? I had met one before, a strong one. He was terrifying at first, but I didn't know since when I was sure he didn't mean to hurt me.

Judging from the way the Third Master told about the 'attack', I couldn't find any similarities with the one who always came to upset me. The one who always pestered me acted like the one sitting in the higher level of devil world, even probably the highest seat in the hierarchy. He never acted sloppy or harsh. Even the way he dressed every time he came in front of me was always refined. Attacking people like that was not his style, I guessed.

Also, I had a hunch that those demons were only low level ones. As a proud creature, a higher level demon would not take orders from anyone other than those in higher position than them. Also, after learning about them for a while, I had developed a tiny piece of understanding towards devils' mind.

Since they moved together and not individually, it was a proof that those were low level ones. I was sure of that.

I didn't realize that I had been showing a bored expression as I listened to the heated debate whether we, the Masters, needed to give our support to the Master of Third Army or not. After all, the anxiety in their voices only made me head aching.

Seriously, did they have to be so aggravating in discussing it? It was just a bunch of lowly level demons! Who they belonged to, I didn't care.

Regarding the victims, as the Master of a mystical army, I was sure he could heal those poor people in no time. There was no need to ask us to have a meeting.

"Of course, I appreciate your willingness to protect Merapi Mountain and the people around it. However, that's not the point why I gathered all of you here." He swept his eyes towards all of us before he started speaking again.

"What I meant to say that… it's almost time for the boundaries to weaken. When that time comes, I'm afraid those from the other world can hurt humans casually. They had tried it to my people; surely they will do it again in the future time. For now, only the borderline near Merapi Mountain weakened to such state that allowed them to hurt some people. By the time the power separating us and them has disappeared completely, even one minute is precious."

He was right. Anyone of those demons, ghosts, and their kinds were harmful towards human. Not everyone could defend themselves against ghosts or even demons. It would surely be a big trouble later if we got overwhelmed with their numbers.

I frowned when I thought about the possibility that their numbers would be even greater than us. Their ability was troublesome enough yet I still needed to worry about their number.

"Third Master, don't you think it is too early to say that those astral beings planned the attack to your people? After all, as far as I can remember, as well as what I had learned before, they had not attacked humans openly even after decades had passed."

The one who spoke was a man in brown, looking like a man in his forties, with sharp eyes and a hint of arrogance from his face. I had no idea whether he was truly arrogant or it was just his face.

He worried about the worst possibility happened, however he was still trying to deny the fact that the Third Master had laid out in front of him.

Was he that stupid? That was what I had in mind about this man.

A large scale of demons was seen in human world, how on earth was it not a planned one? It was not like they had no other things to do other than sneaking into human world together in a big group, attracting people like us who could eliminate them in a breath.

Devils were not stupid creatures. They were smart, strong, and proud. If they truly needed to come to human world, they would do it individually and sneakily. If they moved in a big group, again, it meant someone was ordering them to do so.

If only I could meet with the person in charge in their kingdom, I might be able to negotiate some things with them to prevent them from attacking humans. Who was their king? What should I do to meet him?