The spear was heavy, and due to its weight, Aefia was able to strike the ground in front of the demoness and almost caused a five magnitude Hellasquake. The spear started shattering in an instant and soon enough, the radiant glow coming from its glass body, extinguished. Bits and small pieces of glass fell onto the ground around the spear as Aefia landed right next to it.
She cautiously picked up the spear as more bits of glasses fell onto her hand and left scratch marks. Upon touching the spear's surface, the radiant glow returned and the spear returned to its starting state. The tip of the spear turned slightly metallic, which Aefia determined it as mostly iron or lead.
She pointed the metallic tip towards the demoness as she stared with horror radiating on her face. The demoness was not only shocked, but afraid of Aefia at this point. Knowing that she had received the upper hand in this battle, Aefia smiled internally and striked the demon across her face. The skin immediately turned from pale to a rose red in the place she had striked.
"I think you already know why I chose to slap you. One is for your reason of choosing to stay next to the King of Demons' Dungeons, did you not consider the fact that working for such evil entity would lead you to your own death? Or did you only realize it after you joined it?" Aefia asked.
"Let me make it more clear. I already know that you are currently working for the demon king because you need to protect your family from the harm the Torture Cell had promised, am I right? You were only trying to seem as if you worked for another entity, but was never really a worker, but a betrayer.
"You chose to accept the position to be the right handman of the demon king because you thought it was better to be a slave to the universe's second most powerful evil entity, than to live a life of shame for being from a poor human family. Now answer me this, was I right about whatever I have just said?" Aefia lowered the spear to allow for the demon to come at ease. "If you don't want to answer that, I will have to ask you a different and more intimidating question...Would you like that?"
The demoness remained silent for a long time and then spoke up. "Yes, you are right. I chose to become a demon by myself when I saw that my siblings were constantly being punished for being a human living in an abandoned and later colonized world, which got packed with demons. I didn't have any hopes for becoming one, or it wasn't my dream if you are asking me that, I simply had no choice."
Aefia looked down at the demoness and thought for a brief moment. She was organizing a thought when the demoness spoke again. "You are pretty perceptive, aren't you? May I know? What is your name?"
Why would she suddenly ask me for my name? Could it be part of a much bigger ritual set up to trap me? After all, the demon king is very much arrogant when it comes to power. Maybe she thinks I am as powerful as I seem, if so, then she is probably thinking about ways to exterminate me from this dimension and every other dimensions. Otherwise, she is thinking about hunting me down in the future with my name. You too are pretty perceptive, young demoness. How about I play your game with my rules?
"I can only tell you my last name. Are you willing to accept it? I am afraid my name is currently wanted in the dimension I am staying, so I don't feel safe to tell you my surname. Rather, you should be the one to tell me your name first. Or are you just a shy demon? I never imagined a demon to have such a personality, you know?" Aefia smiled to create more impact.
Most of what she said was obviously a lie, but she also wanted to make sure it was believable, so she decided to say the name which she was most commonly known as.
"Sure. Any name works." The demoness gave a bitter smile. Well, well, well! The smart and precious is now fully in a trap! The demoness internally laughed, thinking she had won the battle. Unlucky for her, Aefia had already deduced what was to happen when she knew her surname or the name everyone knew her as.
"My last name is...Wolf." Aefia answered with a mocking smile. Sorry though. You have ceded the field, the ultimate leverage is mine. Even why you get the demon king to start a search, you will never find anyone who has the last name Wolf, who also looks like me or belongs to Earth but was abruptly taken into a dimension she didn't know.
"Alright, Wolf...My name is Aritea." The demoness told her. "Now that we know each other, why not we become friends? We share almost the same strength level."
"I think we are still far from being friends. The things you have already done, that's enough for me to call you a 'friend'. I was planning on having your head separated from your body just now. You should be glad that I had the mercy to blow those things off with a few questions. Oh right! I am not even done asking the questions!" Aefia spoke with an angry and annoyed face.
The demoness tried her best to stand up and limp her way to escape. But uncertain about her environment as she was, the dragon growled at her face with intense heat coming out from its mouth. "Do you really think you can get away just like that? I think you have something that belongs to me. Now walk over here and hand it back, otherwise, I will have to snatch it from you." Aefia said from behind, in her usual position.
"What do you mean you arrogant little human! I have nothing that belongs to you and I believe you have no right to accuse me of such doings! I may be a demon who had killed you twice, but I am not as nasty minded as to steal a belonging from a mere weak human like you!" The demoness said angrily.
"Then why else is the chimera dragon chasing after you? It only sees the person with the key as a threat, if you didn't have the key, why is the dragon so angry at you? Are you sure you aren't lying? As a demon, it is common for your type to lie. Are you going to claim that you really don't have it when the proof is written on you? If you were really concerned about your surroundings, you would be sure to check around and about yourself before leaving a place, knowing that people from any universe but in this current arc of the universe, are smart enough to lay a trap anywhere you walk."
Aefia said while walking towards the demoness while the demoness stepped back until she was directly between Aefia and the dragon.
Aefia squat down to flip the fabric in which she previously stepped on, it had her shoe's sole print still stuck on it, but the details were slightly invisible due to dust collected from the ground. The fabric on the inside of the cloak was a navy blue coloured liquid organza, but details of stars and galaxies were present as a pattern. Constellations of tiny size, could be seen being left behind for everytime the fabric was moved.
To the dragon's vision, the gold light was being radiated at a brighter intensity once the fabric was flipped. It immediately knocked the demoness to her knees and growled at her with a frightening gaze, even Aefia was scared for a short bit. "Oh look! You have the key!" Aefia exclaimed with a slightly shaky voice from the shock.
Sheesh! That dragon is looking out to be a huge cause of a heart disease. Someday, maybe I will go insane with this dragon and start growling like it. I definitely hope not. But at least it is doing what it was supposed to do. For that, I think enduring the bad things isn't something I need to worry about.
"I swear! I didn't steal that key! It's one of your own doings and I know you are trying to make it seem like a bad image of me!" The demoness tried to protest. "I get it now! It was you! It was one of your games! You framed me! You framed me because you really want a few task done on your behave to the King of the Demons' Dungeon!"
Aefia nodded at the protest. "Look, whatever it is that you want done, I am not doing it, even in a thousand years. Now get along with doing whatever you think you really need to complete. Like when you decided you could walk away so nonchalantly. Do you think you were smooth with that?!" The demoness spoke in response to Aefia's nod.
"I am not asking you to 'do' the thing I am assigning you. I wanted to help you do something. Would you like me to explain whatever it is that I wanted to help you do? Or else, I will not wait for your permission to move on to the next step. That is, after you leave of course." Aefia answered back. "Oh, and I didn't really think about 'nonchalantly walk away'." She said while making two bunny fingers with both her hands while saying the words, "nonchalantly walk away".
"Then what were you doing? And stop making those fingers! Those are annoying me. If you want me to co-operate, then I will have to slice of those four fingers of yours." The demoness said with an irritated face.
"Well then, 'slice' it." She did the bunny fingers again. "You know that I already have two doctors here with me. Who are basically my teammates. Even when you slit my throat, they can still heal and revive me. Hmm...I really feel sad for you. Seeing that you are really lonely in terms of friends like mine, I feel even worst saying that I did not want to consider you as a 'friend', I take that back, do you want to be my 'friend'?" Aefia annoyed the demoness a little further.
Knowing that she had completely exhausted her powers, the demoness had no choice but to leave Aefia the way she was acting, although, even the dragon was getting a bit annoyed. Noticing this, she quickly changed the topic to something worth more discussion in order to proceed with. "Anyway, I am aware that your execution is around the corner and-..." Aefia started speaking but the demoness interrupted her.
"Aren't you going to explain how you hid the key under my veil without me noticing? How are you so smart that you were able to do such a lengthy thing in a split second or whenever you did it. And how did you hide it under my veil?! Firstly, you ruined it, secondly, you knew how it works, thirdly, you had the power to destroy the veils property of ownership without my consent. Do you know how expensive this veil was?!" The demoness asked Aefia with a breathless and upset tone.
Aefia signed. "Sometimes, you pathetic demons can go so down to the level of dumbness, that you don't know the answer to simple questions like the one you just asked. I think you all need a school where you all are taught about different types of elemental magic. But let me teach you a few things about my Elemental magic because I think you are worthy enough to hear it. So please pay me your ear and I will fill in about what I can do with my magic." Aefia replied.
By now, her lady and Helio decided to sit down in the dust covered floor and Aefia too realized that her legs were starting to become fragile. I still can't believe that she can't decode that my said last name is actually my elemental name used at the competition. Anyway, I ought not to mention it.
"My element, which is the element of the beast, is one which was established under the domain of the Guardian of Space and Time and the two Evil Guardians. So, obviously my element allowed me to pause time and do the things I had done in order to frame you.
"Now let me take you on a step by step journey on how I did all those things you asked me about. Firstly, I used my time pausing skill to pause time and then, I used a piece of clean fabric to flip to your veil's inner fabric. After doing so, I used paper glue stick to stick the fabric to another fabric but in between those two fabrics, was a hanging thread. In that hanging thread, I tied the key hole to the fabric, then, I placed heavy glue to the key's main body and the fabric and light glue to the other piece of fabric. After which, I placed the fabric on the ground and flipped the veil back to position and unpaused the time." Aefia explained while counting the steps on her finger.
"And then you stepped on the fabric to make it seem like you were doing nothing but stepping it." The demoness finished. She nodded in return to the demoness's response. "Now do you see? The power of the spying? And that too, is the reason why you demons are pathetic." Aefia said as her final response.
"Now, do you finally want to discuss your matter about the execution?" She spoke with a serious face. The demoness looked up at Aefia and a smile flickered on her face. "Are you really willing to help?" She asked. Aefia nodded in response.
***
The Palace of Thornes, The Trial Room.
The demoness was brought in, handcuffed in heavy chains which caused problems in her movement. Her legs seemed to have regained their strength and she hesitantly placed her steps. The guards forced her onto the platform and in front of the rope. The demon king entered a few seconds later.
"Are you guilty of your actions, my dear right hand?" The demon king asked with arrogance in his face. The demoness didn't reply instantly but shoke her head from left to right. The demon king bursted in anger and spoke again, this time with a harsher voice. "State your reason."