In an instant, the underground village of Forlorn City turned into a bloody hell, covered in thousands of corpses.

"Night, take care of this mess!"

"Sighs... Why do I always have to clean up the mess you thoughtlessly make?"

"It's fine if you don't wanna do it," I replied, shrugging my shoulders. "But your queen is also here, and she will be staying in such a gross place."

Releasing a glaring groan at me, he rose from his chair and reached the place where the chopped bodies of prisoners lay.

A dark aura emerged from Vyaghra's right hand, turning it into a sharp claw. With a sudden movement, he shoved his hand upward.

Following the movement of his hand, a giant dark hand—covering almost half of the village—emerged from the ground, grabbed the corpses in its fist, and slowly vanished into thin air, engulfing them all.

"Th-that was fucking awesome!!!!" I screamed inwardly, my mouth wide open.

"Yer Majesty, his seal has loosened," Jambavan murmured, his expression serious.

"Ruru's power must have been weakened," Ume responded, staring at Vyaghra.

"Seal? Ruru's power?" I murmured, confused.

Before I could ask them, Ume rose from her chair and, in the blink of an eye, reached Vyaghra's location and ordered, "Meet me in the castle right now."

"Yes, Your Majesty," Vyaghra replied, and the two vanished with a spiral of plum blossoms.

"Jambavan, what was that about?" I asked, moving closer to him.

"Ya should focus on the task at hand first," Jambavan said, pointing at the stupefied awakeners.

Now that the unredeemable bastards were out of the picture, I turned toward the prisoners who were lined up in the moderate section.

The task that I gave Vyrion in the camp was simple: I asked him to bring me information about the crimes every awakener in Nyx's army had committed. Strangely, Theon had already made files where he had written down the crimes of every awakener they recruited.

The more surprising part was that the awakeners who had committed worse crimes also had harsher conditions in the Soul Oath they took in El Dorado.

It might have been the last bit of humanity left in Theon that forced him to do it, or it could have simply been his way of tightening the leash around the necks of more dangerous people.

I spent the next ten hours preparing the Soul Oaths for the awakeners according to the severity of their crimes. Most of the awakeners in the safe section were those who had been forced to leave the mainland because they offended some noble awakener or were wrongly accused of crimes they didn't commit. Meanwhile, prisoners in the moderate section had committed the crimes that were not deserving of deaths.

Some were told to take a Soul Oath of serving under me for five years, while others were told to serve me for a lifetime.

It was basically slavery with no benefit offered by me, but the prisoners had no choice but to accept the conditions. At the time, they were too terrified to oppose me.

"Hmm, what should I do with you four?" I said as I reached the final group—the group of Vyrion.

"Banished for scamming the nobles by defrauding them in a casino for five years. Three years since in the Abandoned Land and still scamming the other awakeners, robbing more than fifty thousand kilograms of Mid-Tier Soul Stones every month."

"Hohoho~ surely you won't give us harmless creatures a harsh punishment," Vyrion murmured with an awkward smile.

"Yeah, we never harmed any person physically, nyah," Feralin stated, shamelessly smiling at me with her catty eyes.

"Sir Lucifer Morningstar is a man of big heart, hrummm," Gajendra added, coaxing me.

"You thieves are unbelievable. With the amount you have looted all these years, you could establish a city of your own," I sighed and declared, turning serious, "Even though you are in the safe section, you four are the most dangerous people."

The moment my voice turned serious, the three of them began pouring buckets of sweat.

"Hoho~ I promise we will never scam you, Sir Morningstar," Vyrion blurted.

"Vyrion is right, nya! We promise to behave, Sir Meowrningstar."

"We have already worked together, hrum. Have some mercy for the sake of old times," Gajendra added, joining his hands and trunk together.

While the three were panicking, Armin stayed unfazed.

"Aren't you gonna plead as well?" I asked, turning to Armin.

"You already have a plan for us, so it's useless to request," the short guy replied plainly.

"Ho~ how do you know that?"

"If you wanted to get rid of us, you would have at least beaten us half-dead in the war as you did with everyone. Instead, you only turned us unconscious."

"Hmm, there is at least someone who thinks of something other than Soul Stones in this group," I replied, amused. "You are correct. I do have plans thought out for you. All of you will be training under him and become the four commanders of my army."

I pointed my finger toward Jambavan, who was devouring food on the table at the raised platform with no care in the world.

"C-commander!!" the group gasped, obviously shocked.

"W-why are you giving us such an important position?" Armin asked, stuttering.

"Because you four are the strongest Spirit Warriors I ever fought," I declared with a smirk. "Do you think you can hide your powers from me? In the camp fight, if Vyrion hadn't stopped Feralin from transforming, I might have used the sword earlier."

The group's eyes widened in shock, realizing my awareness of their battle prowess.

They instantly made a close circle and began murmuring among themselves.

"Are they thinking if this responsibility is too heavy for them?" I wondered.

After a minute-long ten-second discussion, Vyrion said, rubbing his hands like a veteran merchant, "Commanding an army is such a mind-burdening task. We would have to push our brains to their limit and also physically train ourselves to become powerful enough so that the army obeys us obediently."

A joker-like smile coiled on the group's faces as Vyrion continued, "Surely you won't be stingy with the Soul Stones, as it could hinder our training."

My hand went flying to my forehead as I sighed at their ridiculous question. "You greedy bastards, already showing your fangs? You wanna die or something?"

The moment I said those words, the group bolted toward Jambavan and bowed with a loud thud, making Jambavan choke from their sudden movement.

"Please teach these foolish disciples, Master!"

"Koff-koff... Oy bra—Sir Morningstar, what are these kids doing?" Jambavan demanded, wiping the food particles from his face.

"Haha, they are your disciples from now on," I replied, winking at him. "Train them diligently."

Before Jambavan could protest, I used Blink and bolted into Mine Number 10, vanishing from the area.

"Now that everything is sorted here, I should leave for the other three cities and complete the final act of the quest."

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