Combat Maid Harem

"I don't understand… Is it because I'm old and used? Your maids look young and in their prime."

Grevan felt a tear in her heart when Lawrend blatantly expressed his rejection of her. She saw his maids, and they were young and beautiful. Truly, when compared to them, she was an old hag.

"It's not that. It was my mistake earlier. Don't speak about this anymore," Lawrend said.

He stood up and walked out of the room.

Grevan watched him leave with a bitter expression on her face.

'It's hard to be too outstanding…' Lawrend sighed.

It sounded narcissistic, but that was the truth. He expected her to become angry and attack with her all to try and kill him. She unexpectedly wanted another round.

It was a case of being too outstanding to the point where his mistakes aren't mistakes anymore.

Lawrend wanted to keep a clear conscience regarding Valentina. Otherwise, he would've already found a replacement for her. She had a special place in his heart.

"I hope you've forgiven me for this, Valentina…" Lawrend whispered as he walked through the hallway of the second floor. He arrived at the balcony at the end.

He looked out and saw the demons walking along the road. They didn't notice him as he gazed out to the morning horizon. Lawrend found that except for the color of the sun, there were no big differences between this world and the human world.

Lawrend's mind wandered as he looked out. He remembered the repulsion of the demonic fire mana with his phoenix fire mana. The two were similar, but the differences between them were there.

The question was, "Where did the difference come from?"

If Valentina had been here, she would've been able to explain it to him. She had been to this world in the past. If he didn't remember wrong, this used to be called the Spirit World.

West did something that changed the world forever. And the things that happened after that were unknown to Lawrend. He didn't know how or why the demons showed up here.

As far as he could remember, there were no demons on the battlefield when he embodied West during his first meeting with Daisy(Valentina's first soul shard's name). This mystery was something he could only solve on his own.

'Is there a way to revive the dead?' Lawrend wondered to himself.

He wanted to meet Valentina again. Her confident words stilled confidence in him.

*Sigh*

Lawrend turned back and saw Grevan walking down the stairs at the end of the hallway. She was lonely.

…

After mulling over things, Lawrend decided to put in his all.

He brought Elena, Aezel, and Ember with him. These three were Earth Mages. They were sufficient enough to guard him in this city. As for his children, he wasn't worried about leaving Grevan with them.

She would be courting death if she tried to lay her hands on them. They weren't pushovers, after all.

They landed in a lake. The surface was colored red, and the deeper waters were blood-red in color. It was eerie.

"The water isn't actually any different. It's just red because the sun is red," Lawrend casually explained as they landed above it.

Lawrend walked on it and sat in the center. He floated to keep the water from touching him. He closed his eyes and started focusing on his mana.

Aezel, Elena, and Ember watched around him in a triangle formation. There were demon fishermen rowing their boats in the lake. They stared at Lawrend in confusion before ignoring him.

They didn't even notice that Elena and Ember were human. The distance and the fact that a lot of demons looked like humans only made it normal for them to see people like them.

Lawrend exerted control over the demonic fire mana around him. He guided them to enter his pores and breathed them into his lungs. He slowly replaced his phoenix fire mana with them.

The capacity of his physical body was still the same, so he had to release the same amount that he absorbed in. He was already doing that before, but it was more prominent this time as he absorbed faster.

As the demonic fire mana flowed into his body, he observed them and understood how they worked. Thus, an obvious increase in his speed was visible.

"Fufufu. Master will surely succeed," Aezel laughed.

She could feel the rush of the nearby demonic fire mana. It was slowly picking up speed. Soon, it would turn into wind and then a storm.

...

Several days passed, and Lawrend was still in the initial process. By this time, the other demons had noticed what was going on. Some of them watched in curiosity.

The rush of the demonic fire mana was thankfully able to mask Elena and Ember's human auras.

Elena's hair swayed with the wind as she stood silently. She looked around and checked for anyone suspicious around them. Meanwhile, Lawrend was sucking demonic fire mana at the speed of an Arch Mage.

A quarter of the phoenix fire mana within his body had been replaced.

Then, a tipping point happened.

'Oh. So that's the difference…'

Lawrend realized something. His control over the demonic fire mana became 98% similar to his control over the phoenix fire mana. This resulted in a flood of air that turned into a storm.

The waters of the lake rippled, and the boats of the demons surrounding them shook.

"Jump!"

"What is he doing!?"

"My lovely boat!"

The crowd panicked. One of them cried in pain as his boat flipped over.

*BOOM!*

The air suddenly turned a deep red. A red fog covered the whole area.

That was right. Lawrend's absorption speed reached the point where the demonic fire mana was compressed to become a fine mist in the air. Confusion and panic erupted in those that were within the fog.

They couldn't see where they were and accidentally got nearer.

"Kill!" Aezel shouted.

Elena and Ember didn't hesitate any further and took their magic staves out.