"Plenty," Lythia responded making no effort to hide the truth of the matter. "This, however, is the most effective method there is, " she added. "It has the strongest concealing effect and also lasts the longest of all the concealing spells. Instead of a new spell having to be cast every other day or week, this spell will remain active for at the very least, three months before I have to cast it once again," She said.
"Wait," Dion spoke up as something occurred to him. "You said that it should be impossible for a single human to summon a demon lord, right?" He inquired. Lythia nodded, looking annoyed at the fact that he still wasn't complying with her command. "How common is it for a coven to summon a demon lord?" he asked.
"You could probably count on the fingers of your two hands how many covens can achieve that feat," she answered. "Why do you want to know?"
"Because I'm trying to understand who or what you are trying to hide from?" Dion replied causing Lythia's eyes to widen in surprise. A response that Dion didn't miss. "From your tone of contempt when speaking of imps, It's safe to say that you'd sooner die than run from an enemy weaker than you," Dion observed. "So either another demon lord or perhaps a foe stronger than that?" He laid out his line of logic.
The side of Lythia's lips tilted upwards in a half-smile, half-smirk. Despite his annoying unwillingness to bend to her whims, the longer she interacted with the boy, the more pleased she found herself with him. His mind's ability not only to quickly understand both those around him and the situations he found himself in, would prove itself more than useful in the future. In barely half an hour of interacting with her, he was already putting together a picture of the kind of demon she was. From one statement alone, he'd already eliminated a majority of the possible foes she could have been hiding from. Lythia was growing more and more confident that even if by chance, she had gotten the right person to have at the head of her coven.
"As I said before," Lythia spoke up, the smirk still on her lips. "You are incredibly lucky to have managed to summon a demon lord on your own and to have lived to tell the tale," She told him. "You must have used up all of your luck just to survive, however, because you also managed to summon the most-hated demon lord in all of hell," She informed him with an easy smile. Clearly, the status of most hated demon didn't bother Lythia in the least. "Above the rank of demon lord is the rank of prince of hell. Of which, there are seven. Without getting into too many details, let's just say that all seven of them would love nothing more than to have my head on a pike," she said calmly. "Hell is the kind of place where anyone weaker than you is treated with contempt. But those far stronger than you are either to be avoided or to be kissed up to," She explained.
"Having the favor of one of the princes of hell is nothing to be scoffed at. It's a golden ticket that most demons would kill for. Not only does it offer you protection of a kind that only other princes or the king of hell himself can threaten. It also means obtaining the means to ascend to the highest levels of the Demon lord rank," She relayed. "Something that ninety-nine point nine of the demons in hell can only dream of," She stated. "The fact that the seven princes of hell want me dead means that every demon from the demon lord level and below now has a means of gaining the favor of not just one, but all the seven princes of hell," she stated. "They don't even have to fight me, they just have to let them know where I am and they'll be rewarded beyond their wildest dreams," she said. "It's a chance no demon will pass up on," She declared.
"Wait, are you saying that every demon and their coven are currently looking for you and, by extension, me?" Dion asked his eyes wide as the weight of the situation he was in hit him like a ton of rocks.
"Not every demon has a coven," Lythia countered. "But you can be certain that everyone that does is almost entirely focused on finding you," She stated. Lythia knew that they were, in all likelihood, looking for another coven and not a solitary summoner. She, however, needed Dion to be as careful as possible. As such, she didn't mind twisting the truth a bit. "Like I said, you probably exhausted all your luck just to survive the summoning," She said with an amused smile.
A look of fear crossed Dion's face as he thought about it. Lythia didn't mind this. If he wasn't afraid, she'd know he wasn't giving the situation the proper consideration that it required. His fear meant that he would take remaining hidden seriously. A look of confusion, however, soon replaced the fear in Dion's expression. "Wait, weren't you in hell before I summoned you?" He asked. "Why didn't they attack you there?" he further posed.
"Because you are looking at the strongest demon lord in all of hell," She replied not bothering to hide the pride in her voice as a cocky smile played on her lips.
"That tells me why the other demon lords and those below wouldn't attack you," Dion countered after a bit of silence. "But not why the seven princes of hell wouldn't," He added.
"Because they are spineless cowards," she replied. Somehow, the contempt in her voice as she spoke about the princes of hell was thicker than when she was talking about imps. At the look of confusion that crossed Dion's expression at her answer, she continued. "Demons are very prideful creatures, and the stronger they get, the bigger that pride becomes," She said. "If two or more princes of hell came together just to fight a demon lord, it wouldn't earn them any respect. Instead, they would only garner contempt as they would be silently admitting that they couldn't deal with the demon lord on their own," She explained.
"On the other hand, if they were to try and take me on by themselves, it would probably be the hardest fight of their lives," She said. "Even if they would have won in the end, it would have been a fight that would have left them weakened for more than a millennia back when I was at my peak," She stated. "Hell isn't a place for the weak," She informed him. "Those who for whatever reason become weakened, tend not to live very long," She added. "Even if they had killed someone that all the other princes wanted dead, none of the other princes would have lifted a finger to help the prince that had been foolish enough to fight me," She said. "As such, any prince that fought me, even if they won, would have soon thereafter lost their title, and possibly their lives as well," she explained.
"Why not use the demons under them?" Dion asked, causing a brow to arch on the demon's face and an intrigued smile to cross her lips as she regarded him. "If it was me, I'd have you attacked by as many demon lords as I could to weaken you first before I swooped in for the kill," Dion proposed. "And if the favor of a prince of hell means as much as you make it out to be, I'm sure more than a few demon lords would be willing to jump at the chance," he added.
"What makes you think that they didn't already try that?" She asked with a cocky smile. "The ten thousand year war! That's what it's now known as," She said. "All seven of the princes of hell sent their underlings to attack me, thinking that it would make me an easier target. Just like you, they underestimated just how much of a battle maniac I am. For ten thousand years, every Demon lord in the fifth circle of hell tried to kill me," Despite the words that she'd just spoken, there was almost a note of nostalgia in her voice as she spoke of it. It was almost as if the fact of the attempt on her life by the other demon lords was nothing more than an amusing joke to her. Rather than being scared, Dion could tell by the look in her eyes that she'd instead had the time of her life.
"By the end of ten thousand years, the number of demon lords in the fifth circle of hell had gone from over a hundred and fifty thousand to less than ten thousand," she reported with a smile.