Demon soldiers had been guarding the Slave District since yesterday any and all movement in and out of the area. Even the residents of the district themselves were forced to stay any who tried to enter and leave without permission was arrested on the spot. Guards were posted at all major checkpoints stopping people from entering and all information about a Forsaken beast in the city was kept under the carpet to avoid widespread panic.

For hours Demon soldiers had been scanning everyone within the district slaves included for anyone who may have been virally infected by a Forsaken beast so far no one had come up positive.

Members of the Demonic Intelligence Agency were called in to investigate the reason behind the sudden Forsaken beast attack within the walls of Hellscape they were all situated at the arena mostly while small splinter groups scoured other areas of the district. These people were dressed in black ops style gear, and their gear was top of the line in terms of standard military equipment that's if they weren't compared to students of the academy that was funded by Lord Belial's family.

Certain individuals of the Demonic Intelligence Agency were assigned an area to comb-over by themselves they were also all female their fixated at looking upon the floor as if they scanning it intensely. Compared to their peers these people were only dressed in a tight suit that seemed to pulse with electrical currents across the surface of the suit they were also covered over in a black cloak. Many people stayed away from them simply because they emotionless Golems that had little care for anything remotely involved with expressing feelings.

One of the members of the black ops teams of DIA walked over to the back of a truck used by them. As he arrived he saw one of the technicians attending to a Golem for maintenance little did he realize that the girl was practically half-naked from neck to waist he turned around quickly pretending he didn't see anything.

The Golem's slender back had shifted opening by her spine revealing the inner metallic workings of her body. In the centre showed what looked to be a mechanism that held a capsule inside her body, the technician reaching into a secure container pulled out a cell that had manacule particles stored within. He carefully slotted the cell into the Golem's holding mechanism in her back once securely fixed it took only a few seconds before the manacule cell started to slowly power up her body followed by her opening her eyes.

Her tight suit shifted along with her metallic back until none of her inner workings was on show for anyone to see, she then spun around gracefully until she was face to face with the technician.

The technician spoke to the Golem his voice slightly strained after doing maintenance on at all thirty or so Golems today, "Status report?"

The Golem responded her voice had little sense of natural flow as she responded monotonously, "Golem Subject 4485, operating at one hundred per cent"

The technician then turned to the DIA Agent, "Okay, she's good to go" he picks up his toolbag and the container that housed the manacule cells swiftly leading heading off before he was dragged into doing another thirty maintenance checks. Both the DIA Agent and the Golem stood there for a moment.

DIA Agent suddenly spoke up, "You received your mission parameters?"

"Affirmative" she responded swiftly without delay.

"Alright, let's get to it then" the DIA Agent announced his voice slightly muffled behind his balaclava as he fixed his helmet on his head. The Golem followed behind him as the two of them headed towards the hole that was created by the Forsaken beast hours ago. Standing nearby one of the Duke families of the Demon Realm took over operations in the area while other members of the Prince's and Princesses of Hell were preoccupied with more pressing matters elsewhere in Hellscape.

Following their orders the two of them descended into the pit the DIA Agent had to rappel down, as for the Golem she could withstand the fall due to the metallic framework that she had, she waited at the bottom as her companion eventually abseiled to the area where they were supposed to begin their mission.

The Golem had already begun scanning the surrounding area, a silvery hue from behind her eyes indicated that her inbuilt software was collecting data. The DIA Agent disconnected himself from the rope walking over to her.

"Found anything?" he asked.

"Affirmative..." she pointed to an area a few metres ahead of her "...there seemed to be some unknown energy signature in that spot"

The DIA Agent walked over to where she was pointing to checking the ground he tried to find something that they could package and bring back to headquarters for examination, however, all he could find were unusual scorch marks across the pebbled surface of the underground tunnel. 

The Golem continued scanning the tunnel noticing footsteps leading further down the tunnel, she started walking a few metres ahead only to be stopped short by her companion's hand on her shoulder. She turned around looking at him emotionless.

"Hang on a moment don't go on ahead alone..." The DIA Agent reached into a small pouch upon his tactical belt pulling out a flare he immediately lights it "...you may be a Golem but you're not designed to take on somebody in a fight so let me go ahead first". The DIA Agent went on ahead of the Golem further down the tunnel towards wherever it leads to hoping to find something that would be useful to them in the investigation.

The last few hours had been hectic within the forum hall situated near to the Hellscape Throne Room of the capital with a few members from both Princes and Princesses of Hell arguing over what had happened yesterday. 

Sitting outside the room itself was a young girl dressed in royal attire looking seemingly bored as she sat in a seat idly playing with the tip of her tail. Surrounding her on all sides were the dark red walls along with them they had white engraved pictures of various symbolic markings closely related to demons. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Lord Lucifer walking down the corridor, she jumped up running towards him.

Before he could even react she wrapped her arms around his torso. Being the younger of three sisters her head resting against the top of his chest.

"Alecto, wasn't expecting to see you here, so what can I do for you?" he bluntly asked.

Alecto loosened her grip pouting, "Wow, way to greet your adorable cousin after all these months". Crossing her arms she clearly looked annoyed at how Lord Lucifer was still lacking any emotional investment in practically everything he had and did. Whereas Lord Lucifer had been spending all this time planning Nariko's reincarnation and beyond that.

"Before I don't get a chance to..." he cleared his throat for a brief moment "...how was your Passage of Rite?". Alecto had only been back in the Demon Realm for the past month, prior to that she spent the past year undertaking her Passage of Rite a ceremony all royal demons at the age of sixteen partake in. It's essentially a test to determine whether a demon is ready to take on adulthood through multiple physical and mental tests.

Alecto figuratively groaned as she twiddled with a strand of her cyan hair that was combed back and held in place an intricate headband, "Well, it went okay I guess..." she paused for a moment thinking on how to say the next part that was on her mind "...i-it's just..." she was cut short by Lord Lucifer.

"You're finding it hard to distinguish yourself from your older sisters, am I right?" he asked. He knew that he hit the nail on the coffin when watching Alecto's reaction to his statement he saw her visibly annoyed at the mention of such a thing. In the background, the tension within the Forum Hall seemed to be escalating.

"Sorry Alecto, I have to get going but we'll talk more another time" Lord Lucifer suddenly announced. Alecto seemed gloomy upon hearing that, but she understood that she couldn't keep him from more pressing matters.

Alecto smiled gently, "It's okay, I have to see Nur anyway I was sitting here to waste some time until I saw you come along". Alecto started heading down the corridor leaving Lord Lucifer alone, he then headed to the double set of oak doors that lead into the Forum Hall as he opened the commotion went up tenfold. Lord Lucifer sighed looking to his right he saw Lord Belial seated at a chair just watching as members from both the Pro and Anti-Peace Factions went at each other.

Taking a seat next to his friend Lord Belial turned his head greeting Lord Lucifer. "So what's been happening while I've not been here?" Lord Lucifer asked.

"What do you think? Instead of addressing the real issue at hand, both factions would rather use this time and incident to one-up one another" Lord Belial responded somewhat sarcastically. 

At the other end of the table sat Lord Asmodeus looking somewhat disinterested in the ongoing situation Lord Lucifer believed it was his way of not having the attention on him at the very least. Sitting near to Lord Asmodeus was one of the Princesses of Hell, Lady Megera she was the Lady of Youth. Being one of the beautiful amongst the Princesses of Hell this, however, didn't undermine the other Princesses of Hell of such physical qualities or other demon girls in general, it was the fact that Lady Megera had the rare physical trait of golden blonde among demons which was considered a Realm treasure.

She looked to Lord Lucifer and then Lord Asmodeus, she herself was getting tired of this bickering among the Princes and Princesses of Hell and decided to steer the purpose of this meeting back on its original course.

"I hear Lucifer that a member of your House was injured during the unsuspected Forsaken beast attack yesterday?" Lady Megera asked. The mention of the incident made Lord Asmodeus grit his teeth together composing himself as to not to make a scene here and in turn put more suspicion upon him than there already has been. Hearing Lady Megera's statement out loud many of the other members of the Princes and Princesses of Hell turned quiet sitting back down into the chairs that surrounded the bleach white round table before them.

"You heard correct Megera" Lord Lucifer responded.

"Well, I hope they're doing okay" Lady Megera replied.

Lord Lucifer glanced at Lord Asmodeus the latter looking quite unfazed by the conversation, he paused for a moment thinking to himself, "However, I would like to know how a Forsaken beast was able to get inside the capital in the first place" he said sternly clearly directing his comment at Lord Asmodeus.

Lord Asmodeus looked to Lord Lucifer then sighed begrudgingly, "I'm in the dark as much as you dear friend..." he turned in his seat facing everyone at the table "...right now I'm rounding up those that were colluding with unknown forces behind our backs..." he locked eyes with Lord Lucifer the latter equally doing so "...it will take some time, but I expect we'll get answers to our questions soon"

"Let's hope" Lord Belial interjected he too was unsatisfied with Lord Asmodeus' response as much as the other members of the Pro-Peace Faction. This was the problem however there was nothing directly linking him to the incident besides from circumstantial evidence such as it happening in a district under his domain of influence. The only thing the Pro-Peace Faction could rely on is the evidence that is provided by the DIA.

The DIA Agent and Golem reached the area located under the arena as expected by intelligence it was made up of slave pens for males to fight in the arena. As he scoured the area he came across a cage that matched the size of the Forsaken beast on the wooden floor panel inside the cage was a patch of red blood. Although this almost certainly proved that the beast was already within city limits before the attack it didn't, however, link the perpetrator to the incident.

"Hazer, I think I found something" the Golem shouted who was further inside the underground hall, Hazer came running over passing dozens of slave pens to where the Golem was waiting to see her fixated at something on the wall before her.

"What is it?" he asked.

She pointed to an area just before her, Hazer looked to where she was pointing to pulling out an angle head flashlight shining it in the general direction of where she wanted him to look. Upon the rocky surface of the wall was a small smear of blood as Hazer walked closer pressing the tip of his gloved finger on it to find that it was still partially wet. Reaching into a small pouch upon his tactical belt Hazer pulled out a sealed vial which had a medical swab inside, without wasting time, he used a swab to take a sample of the blood to be tested at the DIA Lab.

He pressed a button upon his earpiece to connect to a comms channel, "Agent Hazer here, we're heading along with a blood sample we found over, we also have a dozen or so slave pens down here with people inside of them" 

A few seconds went by before there was a response, "Copy that Agent Hazer we'll be waiting on that blood sample, as for those people we'll send a team down there shortly to get them out". The signal between Hazer and DIA Command was cut straight after that. Both Hazer and the Golem instantly started heading back towards the pit in order to take the blood sample back to the surface so it could be taken away for lab testing.

ArcanePunkster

Next part will be the last one of Volume One instead of it being Part Five of Chapter Seven it will instead be simply called Epilogue it will still carry on from this part I just thought it made more sense to rename it that when thinking upon it.

Also to address a question a reader asked me with DM recently and any other future questions on the same matter whether there will still be mecha in this web novel series, the answer is yes. However, I slightly changed it to suit the more epic fighting to happen in the near future and the Science Fantasy setting that I've revolved this universe around. So hopefully when it's first revealed it won't disappoint.

Anyway, as always thanks for reading and be sure to keep an eye out for the next part!