Chapter 41: Awakened

Tyler couldn't think for much though as the carriages came to another abrupt halt, they had reached the red river. Looking at the way the group moved around and whispered to each other, it seemed they didn't have any creative way of crossing it. Tyler had thought the Six-eyed bulls would be able to jump across, taking the carriages with them. He might've actually been looking forward to it, but unfortunately for him, there was no such spectacle.

They had planned on having Erin take the kids across with water movement as the river was too deep for them. While everyone else swam across and Albert using gravity walk on the carriages and having the chief carry them across one by one and with the additions of the trolls they could get the carriages across quicker.

The six-eyed bulls could swim so it was, well, it was an idea... but Liz felt like it would be a waste of time and just froze a large section of the river making them a very sturdy ice bridge. The jaws of the ogres were practically on the ground at this point. Not only was she able to use a Tier 5 spell so easily, she still had enough mana to be able to use an Over Tier meta magic.

With that done they all boarded the carriage again and it was now smooth sailing to the castle, Tyler asked a few more questions but didn't get any more useful information. He soon gave up and decided to relax and enjoy the rest of the journey. He could also get the so-called famed blacksmith to make him a nice weapon like Albert's Miao Dao.

The trip was almost over, they had been on the road for almost the entire day, only taking on breaks mainly for the kids onboard. There were about a hundred and fifty kids which was a lot, but they were surprisingly all well behaved. Maybe it was because most of them were still mourning the deaths of their parents. It could also be the effect of having Erin and Liz ride with them, Tyler knew it was also helping Liz feel better.

They had come across several monsters that despite the presence of the troll atop the carriage still built up the courage to attack, this had made their journey a bit longer but they no longer had to fight the monster themselves and just retrieved the corpses when the trolls had made quick work of them.

Tyler was starting to get a little interested in the usefulness of the trolls, they were the perfect tanks giving their overwhelming regeneration ability and brute strength.

The ogres and beastmen in his carriage all chatter away and he tried his best to listen in on any conversation that would provide him with any more information but unfortunately, all they talked about was idle chatter.

They traveled for another hour before the carriage started slowing down, at this point the sun had already set, it was already dark now and only the crescent moon illuminated the sky. The clouds had blocked out all the stars, Tyler peaked out the window and could finally see the castle in the distance, he felt a lot of anticipation right now as he couldn't wait to check in on the library, maybe him being away from the castle for a while would help.

All four six-eyed bulls soon came to a stop some distance away from the castle. Tyler then came down and went to the front of the carriage to ask Albert why they had stopped, he noticed Liz was already out and was also wondering the same. "Well, my Lord... Um... the barrier is still active and Azar's carriage was unable to pass through," said Albert looking at Tyler weirdly.

Tyler on the other hand was confused. "Barrier?"

"Yes sir"

He thought to himself if he had encountered a barrier there before, Azar was driving the carriages at the front of the group and Albert's was at the back, this was because they were the two strongest people who could drive the carriage, and it was a way to protect themselves from attacks from both directions.

Tyler looked ahead and saw Liz looking back at him also clearly confused, she had also not encountered the barrier when she was here, she had assumed Tyler had somehow disabled the barrier and was one of those few individual demons the noble families feared.

A behemoth with power that rivals leaders, maybe not the leaders of the five great families but still a feat that earns them respect from all 70 families. There were Seven such known individuals in the continent and they ruled their own regions making a total of 77 regions.

These seven regions had remained the same since the beginning, not even the great five had bothered them. Whenever any of this behemoth dies another would rise to take his place by way of a tournament, winning the rights to rule the region.

These people valued strength and never bothered with noble polities. Most of them were of common birth and a few were not even demons. Still, they have granted a rank the same level as a demon lord and given regions to govern.

Although there were more than seven such individuals, some of them valued their privacy and had refused to show their identity to the public. The only people aware of these individuals were the leaders who only show them respect on the surface and of course disdain the idea of commoners attaining the same rank as them.

Most times lower-ranked families would often try to recruit a behemoth into their fold, in other to boost their strength and rise through the ranks. Due to the fact that she had found him in the castle able to enter a part of it that was impossible even for the great five, Liz had considered Tyler one of those and had tried to be as respectful as possible without trying to pry into his past.

It was the reason why she had never ask for his name which was probably the same as the others. After all, it was common knowledge that unknown behemoths were very secretive. It was why they worked alone and didn't bother creating a family of their own, of course, there were a few who just didn't want the responsibility that came with a family.

Azar and the others in front felt similar emotions, clearly, Liz and Ty had said they came from the castle, so why was the barrier still active. It was very important to know that the barrier surrounding the demon king's castle was a five-layer barrier, and a layered barrier wasn't as common as a fold. Most casters, to strengthen their barrier would use multiple folds on them, creating a two-fold barrier was common in Neon.

Fold barriers were ways to multiply the strength of any barrier, the more folds you wanted the more Mana is needed, because it was a relatively simpler method to strengthen any barrier and was the popular choice for casters, folds could go all the way to 10 as long as the casters were of a high enough level, they could even surpass this. Whereas layered barriers were insanely more complex, they didn't necessarily increase the strength of a barrier but would make it more impossible to break.

Layered barriers would combine any barrier with another and even add elements of different forms of Magic, the highest level of layered barrier ever achieved was 3, a Grand sorcerer had managed to create a 3 layered barrier several thousand years ago. This grand sorcerer was a high elf, a race that was known to be gifted in magic. It was believed that no one would be able to achieve that level again, but that record was shattered by the demon King one thousand years ago.

The Demon King had set up a five-layered barrier around his castle, probably hoping to protect his most valuable possessions until he was revived. Although Tyler knew that was no longer possible, the five-layered barrier consisted of a sealing spell, spirit barrier, greater concealment, and two other spells the families hadn't figured out yet, they needed to break the spell to know what it was, no appraisal magic had worked.

They had been successful in breaking the first two spells which succeeded in granting them access to a limited section of the castle, this was because the concealment spell had kicked in, concealing the most important parts of the castle from them, they had speculated that one of the other two layers was a recovery spell that repairs the broken first two-layer Making the barrier impossible to break.

This brought them back to the basics. Power, it was known that even a 5 fold barrier required a massive amount of energy to sustain what's more a 5 layered barrier, without an immense amount of power, the barrier around the cattle would have run out of energy one thousand years ago.

If they could destroy the power source then they would shut down the barrier, but in the end, the power source would only be located inside the castle protected no doubt by the concealment spell.

.

When the five Demon generals had left the castle with their minions, they had made sure to take everything they could from the castle, it wasn't out of petty greed but, they knew that there was something incredibly valuable in the castle and after a futile effort in searching, they didn't want to leave any stones unturned, it was why the castle was so empty even though no one had gotten access to it in over a thousand years.

Tyler could see the strange looks given to him by everyone there, well except Albert, he felt a little uncomfortable but had a pretty good poker face so he looked as calm as he always did. He slowly walked forward to where the first carriage had stopped, Azar had gotten off his seat and had placed his hands on an invisible wall, Tyler felt like he was watching a mime perform.

He couldn't see anything ahead of him and felt puzzled, still keeping his calm exterior he focused his eyes on trying to emulate what he had heard about magic vision, it was a watered-down version of magic sense that even an idiot could perform and thanks to his improve senses due to the fight with the troll, he easily figured it out.

His pupils constricted and his vision felt different, a large bluish and translucent dome covered the massive castle, it even expanded over a hundred meters from the castle, Tyler was stunned, this was his first time seeing this sight, the dome exuded a gentle aura and felt as fragile as a bubble, ready to burst at the slightest touch.

Yet, it had remained standing for so long now, feeling a little overwhelmed his approach to the dome slowed down a little, but his curiosity quickly perked up and he wanted to touch it. As he got close enough to touch the bubble, he reached his left hand forward to poke the barrier and was quickly disappointed.

His hands had passed through no problem, it was the same feeling he had felt twice already and he now knew why at the same time Azar who had leaned on the barrier still feeling it up fell right through hitting the ground face first. Tyler wanted to laugh but kept his cool he looked at the others and spoke gently.

"You may enter."

Liz and the others were dumbfounded, it didn't make sense, him being a behemoth and managing to break the barrier was shocking enough, but now, finding out that he didn't need to break the barrier and allowed him in was the next level. First, it meant the barrier must have had another layer to it, a six-layer barrier, the very idea of such a thing was ludicrous

Next, it meant the barrier recognize Tyler as its master or Tyler had found a way to deceive the barrier into thinking that, either way, was insane. How was that even possible, this could only mean one thing, whether Tyler was a behemoth who surpassed even the formal demon generals or he was the reincarnation of the demon King.

No matter what it was, what possibility they chose, one thing was certain in all their minds.

A New Demon King had Awakened.

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End of Volume 1: The Awakening.

Hope to see y'all in Volume 2: Behemoth

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