The rescue team entered a room inside the castle in the hopes of finding Drya, but as they opened the door, they simply found the place empty.

Lilith looked at Daren who was guiding the team with his nose.

"Another one?"

"Another one... She came here... Spread her smell all over the place and then left..."

"Ugh... It feels like the maze all over again..."

"Yeah... Except this time, I'm guiding us..."

"Maybe we should... Huh...!?"

"Lilith? What's wrong?"

Lilith gazed at a bookshelf at the corner of the room and noticed something strange in it. She moved to get closer to it and noticed that there was some kind of shadow moving behind it.

"Daren... There is something in there..."

"Huh...?"

Daren followed her eyes and he noticed too. A small shadow of the size of a kid climbing the bookshelf like a monkey.

"A demon...?"

"Maybe... Be on guard."

The shadow appeared to have heard their voices and finally noticed the two. It turned its head from behind the bookshelf and it was possible to see a glowing red light coming from its eyes.

"Intruders...?"

"He saw us!!"

The figure crashed through the bookshelf and leaped towards Daren and Lilith.

The figure wasn't a shadow that looked like a monkey, it was a monkey. A hairy primate with brown fur and glowing red eyes. The moment he leaped in the air his body started to engulf itself in flames.

"You!!!"

Lilith for some reason became enraged and slashed the demon with several swings of her sword. Before it could even react, the demon was torn into pieces.

"Whoa, Lilith! Nice reflexes!"

"Grrrr..."

"Huh... Lilith...?"

Daren was watching Lilith from a safe distance as she appeared to be wanting to fight a bit more. She was breathing heavily and raising her shoulders up and down as if she was about to run a marathon.

"I hate... This type of demon..."

"You... Hate fire monkeys...?"

"Absolutely... These things used to antagonize me and my family when I was a kid..."

"Is... Is that why you hate demons so much?"

"Yes... I hate how they just keep acting like tormenting people is a fun game to play... They have no idea whats it's like to be on the other side..."

"Yeah... I get that..."

Daren could completely sympathize with Lilith. It was the same way he felt towards the G.o.ddess of the east. Having so much power and still acting like a spoiled child.

"Come on... We need to keep going!"

"R- Right!"

Lilith seemed like she was ready to face the next demon that appeared in front of her. Daren was praying that she wouldn't mistake him for one by accident. Her silver metal sword was one of the few things that could pierce his skin.

Daren noticed that the pet monsters were looking up at the ceiling of the room.

"What's wrong guys?"

He followed their line of sight and became worried with what he saw.

"Huh... Lilith...?"

She heard her name being called and looked at what the rest of the team was observing.

"You can turn on your future sight now..."

The ceiling of the room was completely destroyed making it possible to see the room above them. Inside this room, a large pack of fire monkeys was staring at their fallen comrade with sorrow and at the rescue team with anger!

Lilith saw the scenery and a.s.sumed her fighting stance.

"Aaaaarghhhh!!"

She jumped into the pack of monkeys and started to slash them left and right with several swings of her sword.

Daren wanted to jump in to help her, but her sword was moving like a hurricane and he was scared to be slashed by accident.

On top of that, it didn't seem like she was finding much trouble with the enemies.

"I gotta remember never to get on her angry side..."

"DAREN DID YOU SAY SOMETHING????"

"Nothing ma'am!"

The pool of demons was starting to shrink but there were still a lot of them. Lilith was cutting them with ease but Daren became worried that she would end up overusing her future sight again.

"Lilith!! Don't lose yourself!!"

Lilith heard his words and realized she was falling into her old habit again. Completely losing herself in the battlefield and not realizing the dangers around her.

The shock of coming back to reality was so great that she distracted herself and managed to give an opening to the demons to strike her.

"Gaaahh!!"

"Lilith!!"

Daren was about to jump and aid her, but before he could, the pet beasts joined the fight and tore the pack of monsters to pieces. The minotaur, the dragon, and the pegasus, all started to rampage inside the room.

"What the... Oh!!!"

Daren then remembred. These monsters had inherited the memories from Auren, Ria, and Gustav. They were all members of the mansion that belonged to Marceus. And in that mansion there was one sacred rule, n.o.body bullies Lilith.

Aside from Sphinx who seemed just as shocked as Daren, all the monsters continued to completely tear apart all of the demon fire monkeys. Since his memories came from Evlin he didn't had the same "Lilith trigger" the rest of the pets had. He did probably had an "Ashley trigger" thought.

Lilith observed in shock as the creatures came to her aid after finis.h.i.+ng the demons off as if waning to make sure she was ok.

"Huh... Thanks...?"

Lilith tried to extend her hand to try and pet the monsters that came to help, but as she was about to do so, she shook her arm and closed her hand.

"I- I'm sorry..."

The monsters looked really depressed after seeing that Lilith didn't want to pet them, especially after fighting for her.

"I'm truly sorry!! It's just still too hard for me!!"

She tried to apologize to them and make it clear that it wasn't their fault.

Daren watched the scene and realized that Lilith's aversion to monsters and demons might run deeper than he imagined. He started to hope that he could return to being a human soon. He didn't want to make Lilith uncomfortable each time she saw him.

Not only that, Lilith was a silver metal user. he didn't want to burn his body every time he tried to approach her.

"I think we are finished here... Let's continue our search."

"R- Right..."

Part 2

"Why does she keep entering and leaving the rooms?? Her scent is all over the place!"

"No idea... I already gave up on trying to understand demons..."

The rescue team continued searching every single room that had the scent of Drya's smell inside of it. Daren started to wonder if the dryad knew they would try to track her with Daren's nose and decided to walk all over the castle just to annoy them. She looked like the kind of demon that was not above childish pranks like this.

Lilith didn't seem too tired from the fight with the fire demons. Thankfully they would be able to rely on her future sight a bit more.

"Wait a minute!!"

"!!!??"

Daren suddenly halted and Lilith followed his command by doing the same. The animals that were right behind them also stopped running and were put on guard. They were right in the middle of a hallway right now. Just like the rest of the castle, the light of the sun did barley anything to shed some illumination inside through the windows.

Daren was looking a little nervous.

"She's close..."

"!!!"

"Lilith... Turn on the future sight now... We might be engaging in battle soon..."

"Understood..."

Lilith followed his command and instantly saw something that terrified her.

"Daren!! Move!!!"

She extended her arms that right now were also a pair of red wings and pushed Daren away.

"Oooff!!"

He was knocked against the floor and turned around confused to look at Lilith.

"Lilith, what happe- Huh!!??"

He gazed at the spot he was standing on just a second ago and realized that the floor he was now filled with green spikes sticking out of it.

"Daren!! Hug the walls! Now!!!"

Daren followed her command, and as he did so, several spikes started to come out of the floor right in the center and began to fill up the entire hallway.

"There are too many!! Climb the walls!"

Daren and Lilith used their claws and talons to stab the walls and move away from the floor. The monster companions tried to escape as well. Sphinx and the green dragon also climbed using their claws but Gustav's white pegasus simply used his wings to fly upwards. Auren's minotaur didn't have a means of escaping sadly and ended up being stabbed to death.

"This is bad... She knows we are here..."

"She must be right beneath us..."

"We can't fight in here! We need to move to another area! This hallway is too small..."

"R- Right... Huh!?"

"!!!"

The two noticed that the green spikes were now turning into vines and were moving across the room as if they were tentacles. They a.s.sumed that the vines were going to try and grab them but they were acting as if they were checking the room. Daren then understood.

"She's trying to find us... She doesn't know our location yeat!"

"Do- Do we return or do we keep going?"

While still sticking to the walls with his claws, Daren observed the situation and tried to decide the best course of action.

"She's trying to keep her distance from us... She knows she can't resist my claws and your blades... We need to bring the fight to her..."

"..."

"Let's destroy the entire floor and go after her!"

"Understood!"

The two jumped from the walls and aimed right in the center of the floor with their weapons. The impact opened a huge hole that lead the two to the floor beneath.

Once they reached the ground they realized that they were in some kind of dungeon. The walls were made of brick stone and the ground as well. If they looked up they could see the hole that connected to the previous hallway and the monsters still trying to avoid the green vines.

Daren followed the origin of the vines that were reaching the floor above and noticed that they were coming from a girl in the middle of the dungeon that was producing them with her arms while sitting on a bed with her legs crossed while grinning at them.

"Barging into a girl's room? Not very polite, are you?"

"Give us Ashley back!"

Drya looked at the monster lion and the monster harpy and made her smile even bigger.

"And I would do that because...?"

Daren then proceeded to sharpen his claws while Lilith raised her sword and a.s.sumed her samurai stance. They were now glaring at Drya with complete bloodl.u.s.t in their eyes.

"Because the two of us have already ran out of patience!"