Absolute Depravity: Reincarnated with a lustful System-Chapter 304 - The Arc Of Heavenly Bodies Begins

Wandering through the forest in their carriage late at night, Haruki and his companions were slowly making progress to reach uncharted lands. And while getting there wouldn't have been a problem with Hawthorn's teleportation, getting the entire army showing up there at once would've blared all sirens for both the tribes Haruki was trying to intercept.

This decision to travel on land, while reasonable enough, did possess some weaknesses, one of which happened to be trailing spies keeping watch of Haruki's every moment. Taking advantage of just that, the prince of hell watched through the eyes of his numerous hellspawns prowling through the forest. Like rats and other rodents, they'd transformed themselves to keep an eye on the long file of carriages.

'Keep your eyes on him.' With his throne threatened by the new demon lord of lust, the prince of hell commanded his minions.

Unaware of the happenings outside the comfort of the luxury cushioned carriage, Haruki was dozing off lightly. Surrounding him with looks of concern the demi-human passengers kept healing his charred lips and nerves as they were slowly being consumed by the poison.

Asmodia on the other end simply watched and wondered what a mess the whole situation had been. Feeling her own clone being corroded bit by bit from the sheer strength of her soul, she also felt a hint of jealousy while watching Asuka and the demi-cats constantly healing Haruki.

"Heal…" Perhaps noticing the look of scorn on the mistress's face, Alice surprised Asmodia with a basic healing spell. "Tsk! It's not working."

"It's a clone, of course, it's not working," Asmodia retorted, being as ungrateful as ever.

Scowling, Alice glared up at Asmodia. For a moment she said nothing just kept staring seemingly frustrated.

"No wonder nobody wants to help you with that attitude," Alice complained before turning away from the mistress.

Following their interaction, the carriage came to a sudden halt, sending everyone present jerking forward. Thankfully, they all managed to keep themselves from hitting the opposite seats. Even Haruki had woken up from the jerking motion and kept his feet planted firmly to avoid falling forward.

While everyone was collecting their thoughts after what had happened, the coachman's window opened up and Riley peered inside.

"We're at the borders to Feral lands, camping here with the army will be our last chance to rest before the interception," Riley advised, not realizing how her sudden stop had affected the passengers.

Visibly tired and frustrated, the girls looked at her as if ready to throw a punch. Flinching back at the sight, Riley knew she'd messed up somehow, but didn't know exactly how.

"Fine, let's camp then," breaking the awkward moment, Haruki looked at Riley and nodded.

Opening the door to his side, he slipped right out before holding it open for the rest of his companions to get out. One after the other as they quickly got out and made their way to the tents the demon servants were setting out for them. After the events of the numerous wars, only the most loyal and fruitful soldiers were left behind, and in their eyes being able to serve a competent master was the highest honor possible.

"Master Haruki, please let us know if you need anything in your tent. We've made sure there's enough room for the other masters, but if we've come short in any way we'll make haste to fix it for you," standing at the zipped curtains to an excessively expansive tent teeming with the luxuries of a comfortable castle chamber, a row of demons and monsters bowed before their overlord.

Although the display appeared a bit excessive, the new demon general Greta glared angrily at the guards as if their heads should've been rubbing against the ground. Her scorn was so palpable that Haruki could feel her glaring at them from over his shoulders.

'This is…' A bit off-put by the whole thing, Haruki gestured the girls to go inside before him. At first, none of them moved, but when he glanced over them all, everyone with the exception of Riley headed right in.

"Master, is something wrong?" Moving closer to Haruki, Greta tried to figure out what was happening.

Turning to look at her, Haruki gave her a look of utter disappointment.

"Just because I turned you into a direct servant under me, doesn't mean you need to lick my boots," walking closer himself, Haruki glared into her eyes and whispered. "The only reason I trust you is because Moriyana did, don't try and get closer by doing stupid shit like this. You'll always be a valuable soldier, but you can never replace her so don't even try to."

Knowing exactly what she was trying to do, Haruki warned her from attempting to gain his favor through pretentious means. Read like a book, Greta took a step away from her master and gulped down her fear before nodding.

"I-I just wanted to be invited in…" She muttered, her voice quaking in fear.

"I've already given you a toy, go play with her," giving out his orders to Greta, Haruki turned to the demon guards who had been stationed outside the tent. "And you all, go kill some monsters or drain their levels so you can pass your strength to me later."

Without even a peep, the soldiers raised their heads and stomped their feet in attention. Marching out in a file, the demons sprouted out their wings and took flight to help the goblins, lamias, and elves by spying out monsters for them to hunt.

"Your training seems effective," Haruki said to Riley.

The spy simply smiled in kind. Bringing his attention back to Greta, Haruki patted the side of her shoulder and dismissed her before venturing towards the forest himself. Watching him heading out, Greta wanted to stop Haruki and ask where he was going, but with Riley following behind without question, she knew she couldn't disturb the demon lord any further.

'I was trying to suck up to him, but I messed up!' Regretting her decision, Greta started walking towards her own tent to take her frustration out on Maria.

"Where are we headed?" Riley asked while following Haruki into the forest.

"To kill some pesky little spies," Haruki's reply wasn't much of a surprise for Riley.

"I did get the feeling of being watched, to be honest," reaching for her sabers, Riley turned invisible to prevent herself from being found.

"Yeah, I felt the same when I woke up," conjuring his own shadow blade, Haruki looked around the dark forest trying to find the watchful eyes.

"Kind of surprising Asmodia didn't sense them," Riley whispered.

"Either she didn't want us to know or her senses have been dulled given that she'd been in an unfamiliar vessel," finishing the chatter, Haruki leaped towards a pair of glowing eyes watching them from afar. 𝒷𝓮𝒹𝓃ℴ𝓿𝓮𝓁.𝓬𝓸𝓂

From a distance, the spies were in the form of rodents, but as the threat grew closer, their bodies exploded into a blast of lava before conforming into red-skinned imps with small horns and slender tails. Much like the gremlins their bodies were arched forward, and like a bright torch their skin burned everything around them.

"Frost dragon breath!" Filling his lungs with air, Haruki whiffed out breath so cold it turned that part of the forest into an ice sculpture. Given no time to escape, the hellspawns were encased in the solid ice and the flames on their bodies were quickly extinguished by the cold.

However, as he stood before the group of hellspawns he'd just killed, something clicked in Haruki's mind and he turned to Riley to share something.

"They're the same monster," he muttered, and Riley instantly knew what that meant.

'Someone sent these creatures to spy on, there's no way they are just an erratic tribe following us around.' Riley concluded, her eyes fixed on the dimming of the creature's skin under the ice. From scorching red hot, it had turned to coal, and if such a tribe was living amidst a forest, it would've been burned to dust in a day's time.

"Should we catch one alive?" Suggested Riley, shifting her attention back to Haruki.

Nodding at her, Haruki looked around to find the rest of the hellspawn bunch hiding throughout the dark forest.

"The goblin queen might be getting some new subjects to experiment on it seems," Haruki added before jumping towards yet another horde.

One after the other, the duo kept hunting down the hellspawns and Haruki would either send them to a dungeon portal or kill them outright with Riley helping with the kills. Despite their numbers, the creatures were weaker than wild goblins, and the only strength they had came from their deceptive appearance as rodents and the scorching skin that melted any weapons that came in contact with their skin.

But with Riley stripping all air around their bodies through wind magic, she was easily able to strike them down, her potion blades doused with paralyzing venom.

"Seems like the moment their skin stops burning their bodies crumble into dust," standing by one such hellspawn's ashes, Riley put her blades away as the paralysis ended up killing them anyway.

Thankfully, however, Haruki had managed to store numerous specimens inside his dungeon portal without any problems. Now the only thing that was left was to wait for the hunting soldiers to return to Haruki's tent so they could be stripped of the levels they might've gained from their hunt.

"Hmm? You can just strip the male soldier's level by touching them now right?" Riley muttered after Haruki had just complained about something.

"I can, and I will, but then laying down with the female soldiers just doesn't feel appropriate," although Haruki didn't show it on his face, the soldiers who'd survived the wars received just as much respect from him as they had for him.

Covering her mouth, Riley chuckled to herself.

"Ahaha!" Unable to control her laugh, she let it out without restraint. "Don't worry, we hitched some stray goblins from a hidden village while you slept. Their women aren't the prettiest, somewhat monstrous even, ehehe! Buttt…they should be more than enough for our soldiers tonight."

"If you say so," Haruki replied, lightly chuckling to himself.