Demon|||C4

Wearing the black military uniform with golden accents, Ray left his apartment in the capital of the eastern empire and went towards the royal palace.

A few civilians greeted and thanked him on the way for his efforts in the war but must ignored him.

Ray arrived at the magnificent golden palace just on time.

One of the other royal guards greeted Ray and took him to the throne room but before Ray was allowed entry he was ordered to deposit all of his weapons before going to the emperor.

"Here, here, and this."

A total amount of sixty-five throwing knives, one long sword, and two short swords.

It may seem like an atrocious amount of knives, especially for a mage but most of Ray's tactics were based around throwing stuff.

He would throw twenty or so knives in the air before any battle and freeze them in place a few hundred meters above the ground.

And if any enemy walked in the trajectory of the knife Ray unfroze it, most of the time killing the poor guy.

If the enemy came even closer to Ray he would use magic to eliminate them, and if they survive both the barrage of knives and magic, Ray would use his sword to eliminate them in close range.

Last but not least if the enemy survived all of this Ray would freeze the whole world and use the three seconds he got Dio-style, throwing everything he got at the enemy.

Well, that was his tactic before evolving but he needs to get a good grip on his two new unique skills before creating new tactics including them.

Anyways after the guard checked for any other hidden weapons, Ray was allowed to meet the emperor.

The giant door leading to the throne room opened accompanied by all other guards leaving the room connected to the throne room.

*CREEAAK*

The door opened completely showing a big hall filled with giant chandeliers, pillars made out of marble, and exquisite paintings.

*Tap*

*Tap*

*Tap*

The only thing heard are Ray's footsteps as he walks across the marble floor until he reaches his destination.

In front of him is an elevated platform and on it is an imposing throne. On it sits Rudra with his elegant black-gold robes and his smooth face that would score a solid 15/10 in most places.

To his right stands a woman with blue hair and a chinese oriented dress in the same color scheme as the clothes worn by all the royal guards and the emperor's clothing.

She's the scorch dragon Velgrynd, Rudra's strongest companion and the physically stronger of the duo and she's around the same level of beauty as Rudra.

Ray immediatly bows when he sees them, after all, if he somehow enrages then his life would end without a doubt.

"Now then, as the laws of our glorious empire state, for your prowess in combat you shall receive the title of archduke."-Rudra

'Mhm good as expected I get the title of the former Rank one but now comes the part I've been waiting for.

"But that is not all, you also get the right to request one thing from me, be it money or something else."

Ray stands up again, this time putting his hand on his chest.

"I can't express enough gratitude for this, your majesty. And if I may, it is my request to form an R&D team for the royal guards, your majesty."

"Your request will be granted, though you'll need to discuss the finer details with the minister of finance. You'll also be obliged to send a report to me every month, recording your findings. Now you're dismissed"

Ray bows once again and leaves shortly after, the only people still in the throne room are Velgrynd and Rudra, the latter asking his companion.

"What do you think of the new captain of the royal guards?"

"He seems very cautious, not like the captains before him who got arrogant after reaching this level of strength.

There's also his unusual request, most chose some banal things like money or women, but he decided to found an R&D team.

And lastly is his whole person, he doesn't act his age, not one bit."

"Indeed, we should get the intelligence team to uncover some part of his past."

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///_4 years later_\\\

*CLANG!*

The sound of two metal objects clashing could be heard in the wasteland on the outskirts of the eastern empire.

The sound was created by two individuals clashing against one and another, a man around sixteen years old with black hair and a stylish clock at his wrist, and a woman with crimson hair and eyes.

The young man is of course Ray and the red-haired woman he's fighting against is a former employee of his.

Ray uses a large number of his magicules and casts a black flame that burns like it was made in hell itself.

He shots the orb of destruction at the red-haired lady ripping her apart but in the next moment, her body became whole again.

The woman goes into the offense and throws a primal punch towards Ray, who doges in the last second like he knew where the punch came from.

*CLANG*

Ray swings his sword towards the woman but his attack gets once again repelled by the iron-hard skin of the woman.

The woman kicks Ray in his stomach sending him a few meters into the air, the woman then tenses up her legs to jump into the air herself, destroying the ground while she's at it.

Ray seeing this coming, prepared his sword to ward off the incoming attack.

*BOOOM*

Ray's sword gets shattered and he gets catapulted even further in the air.

*swish*

*swish*

Ray throws a few knives at the woman but all of them are unable to hurt her.

*Tsk*

Ray clicks his tongue in pure annoyance, all of his attacks could kill instantly, but because of his carelessness, this monster got created.

*CREAAAK*

A rift of white and black energy opens in Ray's palm and strings emanating ominous auras come out of it.

Those strings wind up together forming the rough shape of a katana.

But that wasn't all, Ray activated his time clock midair, using one of its most expensive abilities.

*CREAAAK*

The sound of glass shattering echoes once again but this time only Ray hears it.

The time stopped for everyone other than Ray and a small number of entities who can move in frozen time.

*TICK*

*TACK*

One second is already over and Ray is still falling towards the ground, while the red-haired woman was suspended in the air.

Just as Ray passed the Lady he swung his katana downwards through the lady's body, without any resistance.

*CREAAAK*

The flow of time resumed once again but the woman's body split in half, showing a grueling scene of guts and organs, spilled all over the place.

*Thump!*

Just as Ray was about to hit the floor a wolf came out of the shadows and used its fur to soften the landing, coupled with the strengthened physique Ray got through his last evolution no damage was taken.

"I'm sorry that I couldn't help you, master!"

"Don't worry Cynus, without you I would've taken way more damage from this fall, and all the other scientists wouldn't be alive right now.

Now, would you be fine with escorting me to them?"

"OF COURSE MASTER"

And so the duo began their way back to the Royal Research Department, the R&D team of the Royal guards.

Along the way were many battlefields like before, most telling a story similar to the one the woman, Ray fought earlier, had.

Ray's plans for the Royal Research Department were pretty simple at first, he wanted more personal power.

His strength compared to ordinary humans was already huge, but he was still far too weak to accomplish anything important.

It is his goal to at least reach the power level of a true dragon until Rimuru comes around.

Ray had many plans to reach that strength and the R&D department was one of them.

He wanted to study strong beings and then take what makes them strong and apply it to himself.

The R&D department started capturing monsters with Ray's help and dissecting them afterward.

They learned more about magicules but it didn't help Ray to become stronger so they went one step further.

They started to summon lesser demons and made deals with them, sacrificing human bodies to get knowledge on magic.

Again Ray knew of most of it already so they went another step further and summoned Greater Demons the next evolution of lesser demons.

Greater Demons are A rank monsters so the only one in the R&D department capable of defeating them was Ray.

And that was when chaos began to break out.

'The first few summonings went well, the researchers got new magic knowledge, etc. and the demon got to be freed into another country or whatever it was that they wanted.

That is until a colored Demon showed up, they are greater demons who broke through a certain threshold and got assigned a color matching one of the primordials based on their personality.

So a Red demon will attack you on sight like Guy while a black demon is going to be a total weirdo just like Diablo.

Our first summoned colored demon was thankfully green so we made a simple deal with it and it went back to the underworld shortly after.

Though the next few summonings of colored demons went terrible, they possessed random researchers and rampaged in our facilities.

A fifth of our total researchers died and we installed many more safety measures.

Just now a red greater demon got summoned and took over the mind of a scientist. I was able to lure her out here and kill her thankfully though.

All in all, I decided to end project demon dealing today after we lost once again tens of researchers.'

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"How did the fight go Sir. Ray" A small-statured scientist inquired. He was the head researcher and also the one who knew how to summon demons in the first place, it was a family secret but the man decided to share it with Ray in hopes of earning his favor, and it worked.

"Everything went well, thank you for asking. I also wanted to tell you that we are going to initiate project 'Demonoid' and end project 'demon dealing'."

[A/N:Sorry for the rather short chapter, the wiki about demons and stuff f*cked me over really hard.

Anyways I wasn't able to explain the two unique skill really good so I'll explain them in short here.

1.[Temporal-Awareness] You see evrything around you without needing to look at it. It has a ten meter radius and enables one to see 5sec into the possible futers though the MC is pretty bad at it now and can still get wrecked.

2.[Weaver of time] You can controll strings made out of the fabric of time itself that have a few cool effects. You can for example make weapons that can cut through anything, with the power of time, as long as the object isn't protected by a only defense unique skill/ultimate skill.

Or you can give the strings effects like making the person who touches them age instantly, or freeze them in time.

This here will probably be explained and showcased in another chapter though.]