After separating from her companions, Hadia headed toward the Demon King’s castle alone.
Moving at her top speed, she successfully reached the outskirts of the castle within 30 minutes.
Hadia watched the soldiers stationed at the main gate, wondering how she should sneak in.
Because of the Hero party’s previous intrusion, the castle gate was still in a destroyed state.
After all, Hadia had used the Holy Sword to blow the gate apart when she led her team inside.
At that time, Hadia believed the Demon King was no match for her, which was why she had chosen such a straightforward approach.
But things were different now, after learning of the Demon King’s power.
Hadia didn’t plan on running into the Demon King while rescuing Emily.
If she ran into him, she and Emily would truly be as good as dead, so stealth was Hadia’s only option.
However, Hadia lacked confidence in this regard.
She had always been upright and fair; this kind of sneaky behavior was something she was truly bad at.
Furthermore, she had to find out where the Demon King was keeping Emily.
Just thinking about these things gave Hadia a massive headache, but she had come this far and could only force herself to move forward!
Once her mind was made up, Hadia jumped directly onto the castle wall, which was over 20 meters high.
Then, before the patrol unit appeared, she jumped down and moved straight toward the castle.
Of course, Hadia couldn’t have imagined that the place where the Demon King was keeping Emily was actually the Demon King’s own room.
After easily sneaking near the castle, Hadia decided to find someone to interrogate first.
With this idea in mind, she quickly defeated several soldiers on patrol and pointed her Holy Sword at their heads, attempting to extract information.
Naturally, to prevent herself from accidentally killing a soldier who knew something, Hadia didn’t go on a killing spree.
Instead, she spared their lives.
If she accidentally killed someone with information, it would only cause her more trouble.
Under the threat of death, the soldiers told Hadia everything they knew.
“What? Is that true? The Demon King carried Lady Emily away from the prison?”
“Yes… it’s said the Demon King is researching a new torture method and plans to try it out on the Saintess.”
“Damn it! That cursed Demon King!”
“Um… you promised to spare our lives.”
Seeing Hadia’s sudden emotional outburst, the shivering soldiers naturally became terrified.
They were afraid Hadia would vent her anger by killing them.
Looking at the trembling soldiers, Hadia simply knocked them unconscious with the hilt of her sword.
Even though they were enemies, she had promised that as long as they talked honestly, she wouldn’t kill them.
As the Hero, Hadia would not break her word, even to an enemy.
After knocking out the patrol, Hadia didn’t know what to do next.
According to the soldiers, Emily was currently being tortured by the Demon King.
This meant that if Hadia wanted to rescue Emily, she would have to face the Demon King head-on.
‘Even if that’s the case, I have no choice but to go.’
At this point, Hadia no longer expected both she and Emily to escape the castle.
She was prepared to use her life to buy time for Emily to run.
Just as Hadia was about to leave, a magic spell suddenly flew in from the distance.
Reacting quickly, Hadia swung the Holy Sword and deflected the magic.
The spell hit a nearby structure and caused a massive explosion.
“I didn’t expect the legendary Hero to be such a fool! You finally managed to escape, and yet you dare to return.”
Hearing the voice, Hadia glared toward that direction.
The dark elf, Daphiel, appeared in her line of sight.
“A dark elf?”
“I didn’t expect the Sensing Barrier I left behind just in case would actually be effective.”
“A Sensing Barrier… I really am not good at stealth…”
Normally, when infiltrating a Demon King’s castle, one must apply many spells to prevent detection, but Hadia really didn’t know those types of magic.
Daphiel had set up the Sensing Barrier to prevent the escaped Hero from intruding again.
After all, her master’s head was filled with nothing but Emily.
The task of maintaining security fell to her.
However, Daphiel hadn’t held much hope when she set up the barrier.
No sane person who had personally experienced the Demon King’s overwhelming power would risk their life to come back and save someone.
The success rate was simply too low.
Besides, Daphiel knew that a Saintess was replaceable.
So, she had only set up the barrier as a precaution.
“Whatever. Hero, you came here to die of your own accord. If I don’t kill you, I’ll be wasting your ‘kindness’! Die!”
With those words, countless magic circles floated around Daphiel, and in the next moment, they bombarded Hadia.
Facing the countless spells flying toward her, Hadia took a deep breath and swung her sword countless times in an instant with incredible speed.
She deflected all the magic.
The spells flew into the sky, turning into multi-colored “fireworks,” and the sound of explosions echoed throughout the Demon King’s castle.
“Tsk, how ridiculous.”
Seeing the strength Hadia displayed, Daphiel finally understood why the humans were so confident the Hero could defeat the Demon King.
And Hadia was currently injured.
Daphiel didn’t even want to imagine if she could last 3 minutes against Hadia if the Hero were uninjured.
“Damn it… I don’t have time to waste.”
Unlike the slightly nervous Daphiel, Hadia was incredibly anxious.
After all, such a huge explosion had definitely made her intrusion known to everyone.
The Demon King must have noticed by now, and Hadia understood that the possibility of rescuing Emily was now close to zero.
Of course, Daphiel didn’t care what Hadia was thinking; she just kept firing various spells.
She intended to suppress this ridiculous Hero through sheer numbers.
Facing a magic offensive where every hit could instantly reduce an ordinary person to ashes, Hadia defended absent-mindedly.
She truly didn’t know what to do anymore.
It was impossible for her to leave Emily behind and run away again, but now, it was also truly impossible for her to rescue Emily.
Hadia was genuinely unwilling to flee the castle once more.