System vs Rebirth

"Ha… Ha…" Noel panted a few times, looking at the numerous corpses before him. "This is quite hard."

"Yeah. We have killed close to two thousand demons by ourselves. There are even three Superior Demons to boot." Anna nodded with a serious expression. She, too, didn't have a lot of spiritual energy left.

Noel couldn't help but look down as if something had come into his mind.

Meanwhile, Anna focused her instinct on sensing the surrounding area to ensure that no demons could launch a sneak attack. Fortunately, all those demons seemed to have died as her instinct didn't pick up any kinds of danger anymore.

Anna noticed that Noel was still in deep thought. "Is there something wrong?"

Noel waved his hand first, asking her to give him some time as if it were something important. Curious, Anna walked to him and just stood in silence.

After a few minutes, Noel asked, "Don't you find it strange?"

"What? Strange what?" Anna tilted her head in confusion.

"The number of Superior Demons in this place."

"Three Superior Demons? I don't think it's weird, considering this place is an ancient ruin. And looking at the size, it's kind of understandable to have three Superior Demons. In fact, it won't be weird if there is one more Superior Demon."

While her words held some truth, Noel's focus wasn't there. Instead, he corrected his question. "The number itself is not weird, but the location is. Don't you remember that the Supreme Devil Organization brought a lot of Superior Demons and numerous lower level demons?"

"Hmm?" Anna furrowed her eyebrows for a moment before noticing what he was trying to say. "Are you saying that someone in the Supreme Devil Organization was sabotaging their own invasion?"

Noel nodded with a serious expression. "If you think about it, the Supreme Devil Organization should have gone to this place. In fact, there weren't many demons on the path we crossed to reach this place."

"Now that I think about it, that's true." Anna raised two fingers. "First of all, if they wanted it, there should be a lot more Superior Demons. In fact, you had predicted that there would be an Ancient Demon, right?"

"Yes. In fact, my original plan was that they would come with a lot more Superior Demons, and everyone had to take down at least two Superior Demons. And we would be focusing a lot more on the defense on the wall instead of chasing them out of the city." Noel confirmed it.

"If there was an Ancient Demon, we would have the justification to ask for Commander Oscar while Dimitri and I would stall it with our True Spirit Body." Anna agreed with him.

"Yes. And the fact that the size of the enemies was much lower…" Noel frowned.

"I don't know. Maybe they didn't want to cause trouble to the Greenwood Kingdom? If they brought such a demon, Damian would inform the Greenwood Kingdom. Instead of Commander Oscar, the first one that would appear was the Spirit Transcendence from the Greenwood Kingdom."

"That could be a possibility, but… it didn't justify the number of Superior Demons. They could simply come here and get an additional three Superior Demons, you know."

Anna fell silent, not being able to refute it. As Noel said, the situation would become vastly different if they just brought these Superior Demons with them.

"Sabotaging, huh? In that case, who would do such a thing?" Anna asked.

"I don't know. Such a thing would involve the Devil Saints. There were six Devil Saints we had known prior to this. One of them had died in the Atracaeca Kingdom, so it shouldn't be him."

Anna nodded. "The other two had died in your hands as well. We didn't know much about them other than the fact that they were new Devil Saints."

"They were suspicious, but we couldn't get information from them anymore. In that case, there was Qiel. She had died according to the mission, so there was nothing that could be done."

"Or maybe she was the one who did it? Something like the Supreme Devil Organization had realized her betrayal and killed her?" Anna asked, coming up with a possibility.

"We don't know for sure. How about Alexander?"

"Do you think someone as strong as him would betray the organization? If he betrayed the organization, he could easily kill all the Devil Saints!"

Noel prubbed his forehead, trying to get an idea. "I can't think of anyone. Your former teacher?"

"She joined the organization late, right? How could she have the time to gather those demons?"

"I guess we can't come to a conclusion with the current information. All we know is that there might be a traitor in the Supreme Devil Organization." Noel let out a long sigh.

"That's true. In fact, I'm suspecting Laufey. After all, he was once a part of your Ardagan family, no? He was your uncle!" Anna pointed at Noel.

"But how could you explain the fact that he tried to kill me many times and had taken the secret of the Ardagan family with him and gave it to the Supreme Devil Organization?" Noel asked.

"I can't explain it." Anna shook her head helplessly. "It was just a speculation."

Noel suddenly fell silent, noticing something was off. "Now that I think about it, I have gotten the missions to eradicate the demons, the two new Devil Saints, and even Qiel. But I haven't received any mission related to Laufey…"

*Thud!*

Noel's heart sank as he couldn't help but gasp. "What? Are you serious?"

"Huh? So is that true? He was the traitor?" Anna turned serious, not expecting this revelation.

"I couldn't describe it any other way." Noel waved his hand. "But if that's true, this is insane."

"Yeah. If someone from the Ardagan family manages to infiltrate the organization's rank like that… I can't help but question the brain of the people in the Supreme Devil Organization. I mean, it's pretty clear that the organization has seen the 'Ardagan' name attached to Laufey." Anna fell silent, remembering what Laufey said to her back then. Something about the Ardagan family using her.

"Wait a minute. Noel…" Anna tried to recount everything that Laufey said to her back then.

"!!!" Noel dropped his jaw in disbelief. "Are you serious?"

"That's his words."

Noel's expression turned grim. "If that's true, then it just confirms my suspicion. Laufey is the spy, and the one responsible for sending him…"

"Your father, huh?" Anna never thought that the situation would turn out to be this way.

"Yes. If it's him, there's a possibility."

Anna pondered. "This is getting tricky and complicated."

"That's true. For now, we can focus on the hunt, I guess? It's not like we will be able to get an answer right away. Even if we do, there's nothing we can do right now." Noel crossed his arms, feeling a bit frustrated. He didn't know how complicated the real situation was.

"Yeah. For now, we'll explore this ancient ruin and prepare the smoke signal before continuing our journey." Anna nodded.

"Agreed."

Anna just hugged his arm with a playful smile as if she were planning to drag him away if he was going to discuss the complicated stuff again.

Noel and Anna entered this giant ancient ruin. They had to look around for the entrance, which took a bit too long because of its sheer size.

Although they could fly inside, they would just get confused on how to explore the other rooms later, so it was best to enter from the entrance.

Fortunately, the entrance was big enough to be noticeable.

It looked like a giant double door, but it was made of glasses that had shattered a long time ago.

When Noel entered this place, he couldn't help but get stunned. The ceiling was up high, most likely reaching the normal four or five-story building that the current civilization was capable of. The pillars were big and still managed to withstand such a building.

"This is so big. How many people are they able to host inside? A hundred thousand?" Anna asked. "This is just the entrance, right?"

"Yeah." Noel nodded.

Since the beasts had been ordered to go out to kill them, there was no corpse inside.

"Let's go this way." Noel pointed at the corridor on the right.

Anna nodded and walked beside him while observing the interior. There was not much left after a thousand years. She could see that there were separate rooms from time to time, but there was nothing important they could find.

After walking for a while, they finally reached the staircases.

"Is this…" Anna took a glance between the gaps in the staircases. "I don't know how many floors are there, but it's pretty high."

"We'll just climb it as usual. We still have the whole day to explore this place anyway, so let's take out time." Noel waved his hand, calming her down.

"Sure."

Both of them began to climb the stairs before noticing something different.

They should have gone up several floors, but to their surprise, there was no door leading to that floor. It was just an endless staircase, which made them doubt whether there was a door or not at the end of it.

Still, Noel and Anna persisted, thinking they could just make a hole with their strength if necessary.

Fortunately, after climbing for another few minutes, they found a door.

Without hesitation, Noel opened the door and walked across a small corridor that led them to the inner part of the building.

It was a giant rectangular field surrounded by spectator seats. Tall grasses had spurted out of the ground, covering a part of the field. A portion of the roof had collapsed as well.

"What is this? An arena?" Anna gasped. "How many people can come to this place? Fifty thousand? Sixty thousand?"

"A lot." Noel sucked a cold breath. This was the first time he saw a building this big, truly a miracle of the previous civilization. "When I was touring the city of the previous civilization with my ancestor, I had never seen this one. I wonder what this place was called back then?"