Chapter 209: Advent of Qilphoth
-The Next Morning-
After the attack on the Heart Kingdom and the kidnapping of both Yami Sukehiro and William Vangence, the captains of the Clover Kingdom held an emergency meeting with the young Wizard King presiding over it.
"So to sum it up, the current rulers of the Spade Kingdom are trying to connect this world to the world of devils. In order to do so, they need arcane stage Dark Magic and World Tree Magic to create something called the tree of Qilphoth."
"And according to the reports from the Heart Kingdom, Grim has joined hands with them in an attempt to rid the world of devils forever..."
"Hah?" Jack scoffed hearing that. "That brat's gone and done something outrageous again."
Standing silently, Yuno who was acting as proxy for his missing captain kept having flashbacks to Zenon's slaughtering of his squad. In less than a day, the kingdom's strongest squad had been completely decimated and its numbers slashed in half. If it weren't for their captain's final act of planting a time sensitive recovery spell, the Golden Dawn would have vanished from this world.
'If only I was stronger.'
---
-Spade Castle-
"So how does this work?"
Standing in another part of the castle's basement, Grim looked at the unconscious bodies of Yami and Captain Vangence.
"Dunno." Vanica shrugged. "Something about them being sacrificial offerings or something. Better to ask Megicula about this stuff."
As the two were staring at the two captains, the sound of footsteps echoed out behind them.
"So you're the one who defeated two thirds of the dark triad... Pleasure to make your acquaintance."
Walking into the room, Moris greeted the two.
"Who are you?" Grim asked remembering the two identical mana signatures he felt yesterday.
"Ah, where are my manners. I am Moris Libardirt, former head of the scientific sorcery division of the Diamond Kingdom and current chief of scientific operations in the Spade Kingdom."
Introducing himself, Moris was interested in how someone who lacked devil power managed to not only compete with two devil hosts, but also come out on top.
He was dying to dissect him.
---
-Clover Captains Meeting-
Crashing the meeting with Asta under his arm, Nacht Faust, the vice captain of the Black Bulls told everyone present what he had learnt from his undercover days in the Spade Kingdom.
"Why... Why would they do such a thing!"
Shuddering after hearing Nacht's explanation, Rill was unable to understand why anyone would do something so dangerous as to summon the king of all Devils.
"Who knows." Nacht answered. "As magic knight captains you've probably all seen it before. Scumbags who hurt others for no reason other than to satiate their desires. Trash who feel no guilt or remorse as long as they get what they want."
"The Dark Triad are paragons of such vermin. I don't care or even want to understand why they're doing what they're doing. Unjust evil... They're the type I hate the most. And Grim is no different. I've seen the things he's done, the darkness that dwells his heart. He corrupts and twists everything he comes into contact with. Even if he's doing this in order to destroy the devils, his willingness to risk all of humanity for the sake of satisfying his desires makes him evil. Even if God and the Devils forgive him, I never will."
The room suddenly descended into silence as everyone digested those words. It was only when Asta spoke up that everybody raised their heads.
"I don't believe it!" Asta shouted moving away from Nacht's side.
"Grim would never let Captain Yami die! I don't know what he's planning, but I'm certain that he wouldn't let that happen!"
"How can you be so sure?" Charlotte asked holding onto some invisible thread of hope.
Smiling, Asta pushed his chest out proudly.
"Because he hasn't beaten him yet!"
"..."
"..."
"..."
They actually couldn't fault him there.
Realizing that the topic had been derailed, Nacht cleared his throat and brought everyone's attention back on him.
"Ahem, whether Grim is on our side or not doesn't really matter right now. We have bigger things to worry about. As things stand now, I don't have the ability to stop him or the Dark Triad from opening the gates of the underworld. I know my limits."
"Therefore *looks at Asta* I plan on turning him into our ultimate weapon."
""WHAT!!"" Everyone collectively gasped.
Ignoring everyone's reaction, Nacht carried on.
"Outside of Demon Slaying Magic, Anti-Magic holds the greatest potential when it comes to dealing with devils. So three days from now, on the advent of Qilphoth, we'll storm the Spade Kingdom and burn that damn tree to the ground. This time, its our turn to strike!"
---
-Spade Castle-
"Why three days?"
"That's how long preperations will take." Morris explained.
"And then they'll die?" Grim looked at the captains.
"Once the final layer is open yes."
"I see... How long will it take for the final layer to open? I have business with the landlord there."
'Business? How curious.'
"It takes a day to open each layer. So for the final layer it'll take about 7 days."
"Seven days huh... How biblical."
---
-Elysia-
"I-Its you!!"
Waking up to Patri, Fana and the other elves looking down on her, Noelle sat up with a start and started to frantically look around.
"Grim! Where is he?!"
Putting her hand on her shoulder, Fana shook her head.
"He's not here."
"W-What..." Remembering the moments before the curse bombs went off, Noelle's figure shuddered.
"We-We couldn't stop him."
All that time... All that training... And they couldn't even stop one person...
"Its because we were to weak." A voice sounded out from behind her.
"Nero?" Noelle turned around.
No, it wasn't just Nero. Mimosa, Charmy and the other members of the Clover kingdom who had fought against the dark disciples were all here.
"You guys..."
Walking past the clover royal and ignoring everything around her, Secre squared up to Patri and looked him dead in the eye.
"The Spade Kingdom. Which direction is it in?"
"Nero..." Mimosa looked at her with worry.
"I have to go!" She clenched her fists.
"I-I can't let him face this alone... I can't let him bear this burden for us..."
But just as she was about to press him for further directions, the sight of two elven children in the background stopped her.
"Children?" Noelle spoke up.
---
After explaining that the children were the descendants of Licht and the random royal he had impregnated a long time ago, they finally got down to the main matter at hand.
"Um, Mr Patri was it?" Mimosa spoke up. "Excuse my manners, but would you mind explaining how we got here? The last thing I remember was Noelle and Loropechka encasing the exploding dark disciple in water and then... nothing."
"Mhm." Hearing that, Patri nodded his head and begun his explanation.
"A couple of hours ago we received a divine revelation from the guardian of Elysia Dryad. She said that something bad was happening in the Heart Kingdom. Initially we wanted to dismiss her since we knew that Grim was heading there and could probably deal with whatever was going on. Then it occured to us that there was a high chance that Grim was the BAD thing."
"So you rushed over to stop him?"
"What? Of course not! What do you think we are? Suicidal?"
"Then why did you come?" Mimosa asked growing more confused the longer the explanation went on.
With a straight face, Parti answered.
"We wanted to scout for new territory."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"Then you saw us unconscious from stopping the bombs and took us here?" Noelle asked with a shaky voice.
"You people really assume a lot about us." Patri muttered in a quiet voice.
"Actually, it was the Queen of the Heart Kingdom who begged us to take you with us. Something about you lot having the highest potential to stop Grim or something along those lines. Honestly sounds ridiculous just saying it out loud. But I figured that the children might as well meet their distant relatives before they go and get themselves killed. Teaching them about the foolishness of humanity and all that."
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Arada
Arada We in the Grim Retrieval Arc now.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone