Barbatos sat at the table among the other Legionnaires in the meeting room. He was fuming and the others looked worn out. 

“How is it that all twelve Legionnaires including myself and a search party of over two hundred couldn’t find one single Demon Lord?” He asked with a pretentious fury.

“Could he have mastered flight? If so he could be a day's travel from here by horse.” Shax asked.

“Of course not, mastery of flight takes years of practice. Even if he is a Demon Lord it would take an incredibly long time to fly any more than a meter above the ground.” Adrammelech pointed out.

“He did learn how to use magic without being taught, and even rendered us immobile or unconscious,” Seir interjected.

“I wouldn’t be so sure he learned how to use magic without a teacher. The servant who dressed him taught him the basic principles of how to focus magic but not how to control it.” Barbatos said. “That is why such a large area was affected by his magic, it wasn’t controlled and was nothing more than magic infused with blind rage.” The rest of the Legionnaires thought about this for a moment before Naberius broke the silence.

“If he is that powerful without any control how do you plan on controlling him if we can’t find him before he does learn to control it?” 

“I don’t know. Even if we all attacked him we would be killed in an instant.” Barbatos replied.

“But he does not wish to kill, he didn’t want to kill the humans and didn’t kill us even though he had the chance. Could we not convince him to come back?” Camio said.

“Perhaps, but I doubt he would. He seemed pretty desperate to escape. Even if we did get him back he is already wary of us, thus we wouldn’t be able to put him under our control.” Lilin stated.

“Could we not summon another Demon Lord to take his place?” Stolas asked.

“No, we cannot summon another Demon Lord until the current one has been defeated. And with his power like it is, I’m afraid nothing short of the human Hero could end him.” Barbatos said now looking defeated and depressed.

“Then we shall make a Demon Lord,” Phenix suggested. The others looked at her with dumbfounded gazes. “What I mean is we create a fake Demon Lord using another demonkin as our puppet and start the war. Once we have done so the people will follow us to the ends of the world as long as they believe that there is a Demon Lord. we would have to hold over the people as the human Hero would have been summoned the same time as we summoned the Demon Lord.”

“What a brilliant idea Phenix.” Barbatos almost shouted. “Do you have anyone in mind for a fake?”

“I do, a con artist in the dungeon who can alter his appearance and aura at will. He has been trying to get a reduced sentence so I know he will comply.”

“Good, if anyone is against this say aye,” Barbatos said but no one replied.

“And what shall be done about that servant girl who caused the Demon Lord to learn magic before we could finish his test? She must be punished and she knows who the true Demon Lord is without being one of our trusted personal attendants.”

“We should let the dungeon's prisoners do what they will with her then execute her quietly.” Adrammelech said. The others agreed except for Camio and Seir.

“I believe that is too harsh,” Seir said

“I agree, she knew not what she had done and was trying to follow our instructions as best she could,” Camio said. Barbatos sat back in his chair and sighed.

“I understand that she comes from your clan Camio; and Seir you are protective of the female staff within the castle grounds but even so, it looks as if you are siding with that Demon Lord and his lack of desire to kill. If you do not accept some form of punishment that involves her death then we cannot consider you an ally. We shall not release her to the prisoners but she must die quietly.”

The two Legionnaires could do nothing to argue against this. If they didn’t allow them to kill Aldua then they would be killed for retaliation. The majority had decided and they could do nothing except make her death less painful. “”Fine,”” they both said and with that, the meeting ended.