The Runic Alchemist

"That, my friend.. is a Legendary ranked Demon," Damian replied.

'Why did you bring him here?' Asher asked.

"We will have a little friendly chat.." Damian replied with a smile.

The red Demon in the distance roared in a muffled voice again, but this time no monsters gathered near him.

"I doubt we can control him. Killing him seems a safer choice, don't you think?" Worldscribe asked Damian.

"Wait a second.. The Demon is strong, no doubt, but it's not overwhelming like the Demon Lord. With all of us together, we can handle it, I think," Runefather said.

"Does it even speak?" Sesha asked.

"He tried to say something before in the pigmen language.. Guy is quite intelligent," Damian replied.

"Let's do it then and deal with him quickly," Lifewarden said.

"No, I need to prepare first. Let him be, he's going nowhere," Damian said simply and walked towards the temporary workshop he and Runefather had made.

"How long can you hold on? It's inside that weird invisible shield of yours, right?" Worldscribe asked.

Damian nodded and added, "Just need half an hour."

Everyone scattered to do healing and restock their liquid mana or to simply wash and eat. Damian, along with Asher, walked inside the large wooden workshop and created a few runic tools with steel — he had a lot of it.

Half an hour later, all seven of them walked near the invisible boxes Damian had placed on the flat mountaintop; they had cut the summit to have more room. Damian was holding two steel slabs. The red Demon had constantly tried to make a wormhole-like portal again and again, but each time the portal did not do what the guy wanted.

In a 30-meter square box, the red Demon used his spell from the middle of the box. The Demon's portal only had a range of 20 meters. But Damian had used his Archscript Sovereign skill to inscribe a wormhole spell in each invisible box surrounding the one the Demon was in.

Whenever the red Demon started chanting, Damian could easily predict where it would open up, and he would create his own wormhole entry exactly at that point — stuck centimeters to the Demon's portal — sending the guy back inside his original box. It was quite fun to see the guy get more and more frustrated with each failed attempt.

Damian used a palm-sized mini wormhole to send one of the iron slabs inside the red Demon's box. It barely lasted a second. The Demon noticed it only when the wormhole closed and the slab fell down. The red Demon did not touch the thing, though, being cautious.

Damian gestured at his own steel slab, then gave the thing to Worldscribe. Both slabs had the same spell Asher always used to show his thoughts outward.

Worldscribe wrote a message explaining the use of the runic tool they gave the Demon. He did not show any reactions, but his eyes were clearly following each word. The guy could read the common red pigmen language.

The Demon obviously did not show any eagerness to talk to them, even though Worldscribe wrote different messages telling the guy he had no choice and how they could deal with him easily, nothing worked. The Demon did not seem to be breathing air, technically he could stay locked up for years, but there were other ways to kill.

After wasting some 20 minutes, Damian moved on to Plan B. If he wouldn't talk, Damian would force him to talk. Damian used his Archscript Sovereign skill again and inscribed a spell, this time directly touching the middle box in which the Demon was. The guy tried the portal thing again, and Damian used it against him again, trapping him back.

The spell he inscribed was Vidalia's Grandmother's Divine Seeker Chains.

The second it activated, even through the two invisible boxes, Damian could feel the emotions of the Demon — slight fear, anger, disgust, and regret. Damian did not know the cause of these feelings, just the feelings themselves. He could increase some of them. Damian slowly leaned into the anger, gesturing to Worldscribe to just keep asking questions.

With each question, the Demon became angrier and angrier — punching the wall, blasting it with massive solar flares, and at last just glaring at them with gritted teeth.

Then Damian stepped up and opened up a wormhole directly beneath the guy's feet, connecting it back to the top of his box — letting the guy fall continuously. He was super fast, though, and stepped aside after falling twice, but Damian did not stop at all and made wormholes one after another.

The Demon could not even take a single step without getting frustrated. Damian slowly started increasing the fear in the guy and spammed even more wormholes all inside, inscribed on the box using his Archscript Sovereign skill.

Even mid-air was not safe. At last, Damian let the guy come out beside the fallen runic tool and stopped the wormholes. If not for the situation at hand, the sheer amount of mana had made the guy hesitate for a moment — to reconsider his fate in their hands.

At last, leaning heavily into the fear, the red Demon picked up the runic tool.

Perfect. Three questions he could ask. Damian spoke out loud so the Demon could see it was him who was asking. It was Worldscribe who typed it in pigmen language:

"Who are your other four companions protecting the Sun God?"

The Demon stared at the tool and his hand in disbelief as it forced him to answer.

They were lords. And then there was King Sulthar, their leader. The Demon described each one of them in detail, mentioning even their abilities and race. They were mindless rampaging monsters in a dungeon — The Divine One, Damian assumed the Sun God, gave them the ability to think clearly and showed them the way out of their confined places in the dungeon.

The Highswords exchanged glances at each other. Damian, Sesha, and Asher, however, had calculating eyes, trying to figure out the best way forward with the information about such dangerous creatures.

The Sulthar guy — The Dragon King — seemed to be an existence too overwhelming even for these four lords.