Our plan was simple. First, we collected footage, pictures, and even memories of what our wonderful apprentices had been able to accomplish in the various labs we'd taken them to. Then, we had them visit one of the watering holes available to the legion in the conquered city and just… let them get drunk.
Well, Ian got drunk. Almost deathly so. Revilla? I had taught her a useful little spell that merely imitated the physical appearance of drunkenness while keeping her sober.
She proved herself a wonderful actress. Leaning on that good old 'prideful elf' stereotype, she freely distributed proof of their achievements while loudly complaining about everything Mia and I done to the duo in order to train them up.
I was surprised and pleased when Ian, drunk as he was, jumped in to offer his own complaints. At least, I was pleased until I realized he was completely sincere in his whining. Not a single lie or exaggeration, his soul bare for all demons to witness the truth! Revilla also looked like she'd taken a load off her shoulders once she was done, so…
Okay. Maybe we'd been a bit cruel to them? It was funny, though!
Anyway, the plan worked beautifully. The little shits the four lieutenant generals had slipped into our ranks were all too eager to jump at the opportunity to poach. Our 'clearly unhappy' apprentices seemed ripe for the picking.
And that was before Revilla 'accidentally' let slip that Mia and I had been teaching them some of our personal spells. Then they received no fewer than eight subtle requests for a meeting. Eight. In a single day.
By the time the week was out, and we were preparing to act on all the spies we'd uncovered, the count had gone up to seventeen.
The number stunned even Glaustro.
Only briefly, though. A closer look revealed that not all of the spies contacting the duo came from the four lieutenant generals. In fact, only about a third did.
The rest vaguely hinted at various influential demonic families who had consistently inserted themselves into the higher echelons of the legion. They offered everything up to and including an engagement to one of their children, provided that the duo could actually fulfill the potential they were showing off. None of the offered contracts would come into effect until Ian and Revilla were demons, and then only if they ascended as at least archdemons.
In other words, typical self-serving demonic greed.
None of us had any interest in dealing with those spies personally. Glaustro put some people on the job, but only to watch the idiots without interfering. He was hoping they'd lead him to the wider network of similarly minded individuals infiltrating our ranks.
The few spies affiliated directly with the four lieutenant generals, however? Those we had plans for.
The next part of the scheme was somewhat risky. Each of the spies was invited by Revilla to a meeting at an out-of-the-way tavern. If any of these spies were communicating with each other, a single exchange of intel could have ruined things. We were counting on the fact that each spy wanted their own chance to recruit the duo and turn them against us.
As evidenced by the six figures approaching the tavern independently, all trailed by spies of our own who kept us updated on their movements, we needn't have worried.
"Get ready." I sent the message to everyone involved, squeezing Mia's hand as I did so. We were sitting at a table in a rather stereotypical shady corner of the tavern, reasonably out of sight. "We're jumping in as soon as the last of them is inside."
Glaustro's irate grumbling cut across our mental channel, accompanied by Methialia's quiet snickers. "You know I helped make this plan, right?"
"And yet you're not here," I pointed out with a smirk. "You're just the boss hovering over our shoulders."
As Glaustro kept griping, I watched three of the idiotic spies walk in, one after the other. Each one looked around and moved quickly to the separate tables Revilla had mentioned in her invitation. Moments later, another spy entered and sat at his own table.
Then the first hitch of the night happened. The last two targets tried to enter the tavern together, almost knocked into each other, and exchanged a glance.
Both froze up.
Mia cursed. "Come in now," she hissed mentally at the people we had stationed outside, her mana already billowing out of her. "Don't let them spook and run!"
Chaos descended in less than a second.
Mia's barrier spell took effect just in time. It cut off our people outside from coming in, but it also prevented any of our targets from leaving.
Both startled spies at the door tried to spring out of the tavern in a jumble of limbs, only to bounce back as they hit the barrier. The other four, already inside, shot to their feet and reached for their weapons. Their mage shields snapped into place as they turned towards me and Mia.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Unfortunately for them, we didn't just have soldiers stationed outside.
The twenty other patrons in the tavern stopped chatting and rose from their seats, drawing their own weapons. The bartender, who had been taking orders jovially, also fell silent as he produced a sword from underneath the bar.
"I'll give you a chance to surrender without putting up a fuss. Please, don't take me up on the offer," Mia purred. She stared at the spies with a look that, well, reminded me of a cat. Specifically one about to do unspeakable things to a mouse purely for entertainment.
The spies tried to bolt.
In their defense, the two guys who had tried to run before Mia activated our pre-laid barrier almost managed to create a breach. I was convinced they were greater demons at best, but then their souls wavered, and suddenly I was looking at a duo of archdemons.
Two of the other four revealed the same deception. The one genuine greater demon looked like he'd bitten into a lemon.
The final asshole roared, and the soul of a very weak Baron billowed out of him. He was a hulking beast, honestly, with a corona of short horns all growing out of his face and sweeping backwards. I seriously doubted he could sleep normally on a bed.
As I watched, lightning bolts as thick as a man's wrist erupted out of him, slamming into any of our soldiers nearby and blasting them backwards. One got hit so hard, his chest was a mess of fried flesh and ribs poking out of sloughing skin. Another was caught straight in the head. With how fast he dropped, I didn't think we'd be seeing him for several weeks at least, until he managed to crawl back from the Abyss.
The Baron immediately went after our other soldiers, targeting the weakest among them. Lightning zapped two more before I managed to get between him and his victims with a mesh of crystalline vines that siphoned his mana-based electricity away.
"Mia, get the others! I've got this idiot!"
"Idiot?!" the Baron bellowed. I had to wince a little at the volume. "You stand against demons who can crush you like a twig, boy. Do you truly think they'll let your petty master rise?"
"First, I don't call Glaustro 'Master.' That's just kinky. Second of all, please just go down quickly? I don't want to pay for damages to this place. The owner was not happy to rent it out to us fully."
Despite the very reasonable nature of my request, he refused.
His casual clothes exploded away from his frame as he started to grow. Draconic-looking scales rippled into existence all over his body, giving him the appearance of a living scarlet flame. But when a thick tail erupted out of his back, and his hands and feet turned much more claw-like, I was distracted from admiring the way light refracted off of those scales.
Mostly because fingers tipped by deadly claws were now coming for my throat.
I pushed my crystals into his way, thickening and strengthening them. The beast roared so loud that he sent spittle flying at me. My mage shield stopped it, because I'd long since learned how to tweak the spell to protect me from nonsense like that, but the surprising amount of force behind the scream still sent me staggering back. His claws were also doing an amazing job of shredding right past my crystals wherever he managed to swipe them.
I figured assessment time was over.
"Right. Let's prep you for your nap," I muttered.
Loosening my stance, I summoned my soul blade into my left hand and my Lagyel sword into my right. Then, before he could tear past my hasty crystalline defense, I collapsed it myself. Countless shreds of crystal billowed around him like a miniature storm. The fragments stuck to his scales and multiplied, bogging him down.
He ignored it all and rushed right for me, but the sudden weight and density of the crystal made him slower and more clumsy. I simply tapped into the technique Mia had taught me so long ago. A clone was left behind for him to uselessly swipe through as I materialized at his side.
My swords bit into his flesh, sliding right past the scales like they weren't even there. The Lagyel blade was stopped an inch or so in by his stunningly dense muscle, but the soul blade carved straight through, leaving a long gash in his side that immediately spewed blood.
The demon screamed, but only for a second. Then a fresh wave of pain made him choke up instead as all that crystal suddenly found an entry point. His scales were scarily resistant, so he hadn't suffered the worse effects of my spell at first, but now the fragments rushed towards his open wound.
The Baron staggered as my crystal sank into his flesh and started rooting out to the rest of his body.
"W-What? How di-"
I didn't let him finish, obviously. Instead, another teleport placed me directly in front of him, and the pommel of my soul blade bit into his cheek as I decked him.
While training with Ian and Revilla, I'd discovered that it wasn't just the blade of my sword that had interesting effects on magical beings and constructs. The pommel found it just as easy to shatter the Baron's defenses. Along with his jaw, actually, which broke with a very satisfying crack.
Blood welled up from his ruined face. I think he tried to bellow something at me again, but with his mouth full of blood and his jaw smashed, he was impossible to understand.
"Sorry, mind repeating that?" I asked cheerfully. And then, because I was in fact an asshole, I hit him again.
His cheekbone followed the way of his jawbone. The whimpers of pain, not to mention the staggering, revealed exactly how affected he was.
But I shouldn't have spent so much time showing off.
Eyes shining malevolently, the demon suddenly gathered himself and threw his body at me. With how close he was, and my cockiness thrown into the mix, I barely had time to widen my eyes before his horns caught me in the chest. Then his arms wrapped around me in a crushing embrace.
My breath was driven out of me, but my armor did its job and prevented actual damage. Even as we fell, my soul blade flashed out again, targeting muscles in his back. The strength he could put into his crushing hold dwindled instantly, letting me kick him away once my back hit the floor.
I put a lot of strength into that kick. His impact with whatever I'd thrown him into was loud enough to bring a pause to the general chaos of the room. Then I was back on my feet, practically spitting and snarling in anger, before descending on him like a pissed-off Mia.
I couldn't kill him. We needed him, especially as the strongest infiltrator of the bunch. That didn't mean I couldn't slice through just about every one of his muscles until he was a growling limp noodle on the ground.
A quick look around revealed that the rest of the idiots had all been handled. An amused Mia was watching me from her perch atop a pile of three archdemons.
"What?" I snarled.
"Nothing. I mean, if you count nearly getting your ass kicked as nothing."
"That didn't happen! It wasn't even close!"
"Suuure," she purred, making me snarl again.
Was it petty that I kicked the downed Baron a few times? Probably.
But I still did it.