Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

---

Chapter 246: Gods and Beasts

Adrian Cross firmly believed that he was dead.

He had seen so many deaths that the pain and numbness in his chest pierced his brain along the nerves, and he saw his future clearly. The second before he lost consciousness, he didn’t have any half-hearted feelings of disbelief or unnecessary hope.

This was the end of his life.

He struggled to move forward in the blood and fire as the commander of the Knight of Judgement. Adrian had anticipated his own death many times and was prepared for it.

It was just that one thing was different from what he expected. The relief of the end of the mission didn’t come but was replaced by a faint reluctance. It wasn’t that he had any unfinished wishes. He just cared a little. What will happen to Jesse Dylan after that?

Darkness followed, engulfing his consciousness.

Perhaps after a few seconds, perhaps after countless years, the darkness in front of him revealed some orange-red color, like the sunlight passing through his eyelids during a nap.

His body seemed to be floating, but Adrian couldn’t feel it. He didn’t know how long this hazy state lasted. A little warmth from a distant place percolated over.

Something unknown that was cold and moist was pressing against his cheek, and the warm air flow was sharply slapping his face.

Why could he still feel his existence?

Although he believed in Zenni, Adrian himself had always been neutral about the ideal paradise that the fanatics had talked about. He didn’t believe that, as the ruler of mankind, he had that kind of ability—morality and laws were ever changing, and “good” and “evil” were set by a few humans. Could something like that actually send the deceased to an ideal land of God?

Taking a step back, even if paradise existed, he didn’t need it. Adrian had long forgotten that there was any desire in his heart that “belonged to him” and “would bring him happiness”.

Even if he really had a few subconscious wishes, it would be hard to pull him into an ideal paradise. It was impossible for his wishes to include the item “to have his face rubbed by something cold”.

Before he could successfully open his eyes, Adrian waved his hand out, weak but decisive.

Then he grabbed a lot of fur.

As if he had suddenly been splashed with ice water, Adrian forced himself to open his eyes.

A huge and moist black nose blocked most of his vision, and it spewed warm breath, as if sniffing his face. Adrian turned his head and saw the head of a huge beast…

The icy blue eyes gleamed, the snake-like vertical pupils shrank slightly, and the golden horns almost poked into the sky. The huge beast curled up and half wrapped itself in its fur as it lay flat on its back.

Adrian poked the long white fur as soft as clouds with his hand and stared straight into those eyes.

This time, in addition to banter, there were more emotions in those beast pupils that he couldn’t understand.

“Mr. Dylan.” Adrian’s throat was terribly dry, and he almost called out in a breathy voice. “You’re going to collapse the bed.”

Now Adrian had completely accepted the reality—for some reason, he hadn’t managed to die. Even though he was naked, lying in the middle of a soft and comfortable bed, everything around him was luxurious and exquisite, like a dream. This was by no means paradise.

Because Mr. Dylan bit the quilt, pulled it down ill-willingly, and then pressed a huge paw on his chest.

The behemoth didn’t use force, and its claws covered most of Adrian’s bare chest. The former knight commander was very sure that if the other party used a little bit of strength, it would be enough to squish his chest into mud.

But at this moment, he could only feel the soft meat cushion under his paw and the tip of the nail scratching the skin.

Adrian raised his head helplessly and continued to look at the huge beast looking down at him. His nose was filled with the faint aroma of berries mixed with milk, a smell that was no different from his memory.

“Mr. Dylan… we need to talk,” clearing his dry throat, Adrian said as clearly as possible.

The beast just looked at him in silence, licking the tip of his nose with his bright red tongue. Between the mouth that opened and closed, a row of sharp teeth was exposed.

It was wonderful that Adrian didn’t feel any half-hearted fear.

Although Jesse Dylan covered his chest with his paw, Adrian still had time to cast a glance. The skin on the left side of his chest was flat and smooth, with no scars left, as if he had never been injured, but the attack that pierced his heart in his memory was by no means an illusion.

Even the craziest dogma never stated that God would bring back a life lost.

Adrian could feel his heart beating wildly under his ribs, and his face was silent, just clenching the long hair in his hand.

“Jesse.” This time he changed the name.

The behemoth smacked his lips, and a flicker of smoke rose from the sunny room. A few seconds later, the smoke dissipated, and the Jesse Dylan he was familiar with reappeared.

Jesse’s right hand was still pressed on his chest, and the other hand was propped up on his pillow. The beast’s pupils in the blue eyes hadn’t yet returned to their human appearance, and his long golden hair was completely scattered, sliding across the beautiful face, and the tips of the hair swept around on the skin of Adrian’s chest.

Obviously, Jesse was too lazy to change into complicated clothes for himself. A thin white nightgown was casually placed on his body, and it was wide open at the moment, revealing a large area of snow-white skin on his chest.

Without the cover of that huge paw and long hair, Adrian’s upper body was completely exposed at this moment. The healthy, wheat-colored skin glowed like golden honey in the sun. Looking at the scene alone, the atmosphere was extremely ambiguous.

Adrian’s first reaction was to frown—There was no smile on Jesse Dylan’s face.

“Jesse, you…” Before he finished speaking, he was pressed to his lips by a cool finger.

“Cross, have you—” A familiar female voice sounded, the door slammed open, and the excitement quickly turned into embarrassment.

“……Woken up?” Ann muttered, pulled down her face, and barely spit out the question that had been stuck for a few seconds. “Well, it seems you’re awake. There was nothing wrong with the array, but what happened to this guy? Hey, Dylan, are you crazy?”

Ann scratched her short hair irritably. She was still wearing the ordinary cloth robe of a commoner and didn’t have her hunting spear. Except for a calmer temperament, the female warrior of Tumbleweed didn’t seem to have changed much.

“Let’s not talk about the fact that it’s still daytime.” She half-jokingly grabbed the back collar of Jesse’s robe and yanked him away from Adrian. “Cross is still wounded, so get the hell away from him.”

Looking at the luxury and décor of this room, as well as the spectacular scenery outside the window. Adrian, who was now fully awake, could guess where he was. This was the capital of Alban, and the royal castle where the Alban royal family lived.

Ann Savage’s ability to walk freely here could only explain one thing…

“It’s okay.” Adrian propped up his upper body, picked up the glass jug at the head of the bed, and poured himself a glass of water. “He didn’t mean anything else, Your Majesty.”

“Uh-huh.” Ann raised her eyebrows and let go of her hand, and Jesse, who was tugging at her hand, threw himself back on the bed. “If you call me “Your Majesty” again, I’ll charge you for the room, as a guest from Garland. Seriously, how do you feel?”

“I’m fine, Ms. Savage.” Adrian subconsciously pressed his left chest with his hand.

More than fine.

Vigorous power surged in his blood vessels, bringing a satiating acidity and a light feeling of fullness. Adrian took in a hard breath, stretched out his hands, and a milky white halo ignited between them.

“Wow.” Ann touched her chin. “This is an unexpected joy. I don’t sense any spiritual sacrifice. Is this your own power?”

“No.” Adrian replied honestly. He glanced at Jesse by the bed meaningfully and extinguished the light. “…This is stronger than my previous strength. Ms. Savage, can you please turn around? I need to change clothes.”

“I think someone needs to turn around more, but okay.” Ann rolled her eyes and turned her back. “Having said that, do you know what happened to Oliver?”

Adrian’s fingers stayed on the button for half a second, and he looked at Jesse Dylan again. There was still no smile on Jesse’s face, and he didn’t seem to have any intention of speaking.

“Sorry, I don’t know.” Adrian could only answer like so. “My memory lasts until the provocation of the fanatics.”

“Oh, I heard about that.”

After making sure that the other party had put on his pants, Ann turned her head, and the relaxed expression on her face dissipated a lot.

“The Preceptor Bishop personally wrote an apology, but to be honest… it was just full of the usual Laddist rhetoric. I guess the only phrase ‘Adrian Cross was seriously injured’ was true. That group of fanatics happened to be tainted by a deadly curse of the Abyss, so they attacked Cross after leaving? Honestly, the letter was more like it was written to a group of nobles.”

No, in fact, even that sentence wasn’t true, Adrian thought. He was indeed killed right at the entrance of the Abyss.

“After all, he specifically emphasized at the end of the letter, ‘You can ask your companion for details’.”

Ann raised her arms and swept her sharp eyes at the silent Jesse.

“I heard that you have returned to the surface, so I specially appointed two groups of people to pick you up. As a result, only Bagelmaurus and the two of you were received. Where did Oliver and Nemo go? I tried to find Oliver, but that kid didn’t bring a communication crystal. The Moonies and Laddists didn’t mention anything, and I can’t get in touch with Horizon. Now it seems that there may be only one person who knows—Dylan, you should know, right?”

Seeing that Jesse Dylan uncharacteristically didn’t answer, the female warrior’s voice became a little more nervous.

“Those two guys are as strong as monsters.” She gritted her teeth and continued. “That unlucky goat is still fine, yet the two of them… Don’t put on an act, Dylan. I finally got rid of Salter—that bastard ranted on for two whole hours—and I don’t have much time for jokes now.”

“You can ask Oliver Ramon himself.” Jesse finally put on his usual smirk. He didn’t look at Adrian anymore, just looked at the door.

Ann took a deep breath. It seemed that she was having a hard time holding back the urge to beat him to a pulp. “I just said—”

The door of the room was opened again.

Oliver Ramon walked in. Ann habitually looked behind Oliver, but there was no one behind him.

‘Something’s wrong,’ she thought. Even with advance notice, her own people wouldn’t stop Oliver from entering the castle, but there were countless magic formations set up inside the royal castle to suppress detection, and the king’s whereabouts wouldn’t be easily exposed. How did Oliver find her?

Ann narrowed her eyes and looked at her team leader, deciding to put this issue in her heart first to make room for more important issues.

Oliver was wearing the black armor that lacked a cloak, and the skeleton helmet was firmly pinned to the armor. He glanced at the situation in the room roughly, and finally nodded to Ann.

“I went to the holy land of the Laddism Church to make a mission report,” Oliver hesitated for a few seconds, and finally said dryly. His facial muscles were a little stiff.

The leader of Tumbleweed lowered his gaze, and his throat bobbed up and down. He seemed to have a lot to say, but he didn’t know what to say first, and finally picked the least important one.

However, this couldn’t be concealed from Ann Savage.

The relaxation on the female warrior’s face completely disappeared. The hand holding her arm squeezed the flesh of her upper arm with force, and she raised her face solemnly. She had never seen Oliver show such an expression before, and an ominous premonition clutched her lungs, making it difficult to breathe.

“Oliver, where’s Nemo?” Ann asked after a pause.

Oliver didn’t answer her, he just took off the black badge on his front lapel and pressed it on the table next to him. The task light screen that hadn’t been seen for a long time appeared, and after being enlarged by Oliver, the prompt text on it was particularly dazzling.

[To Oliver Ramon, leader of Tumbleweed: We have received testimony from both the Laddism Church and the Horizon Mercenary Group that Nemo Light has been confirmed dead during the reconnaissance team’s escort mission.]

[Please note, if you don’t register a new member within a week, your team will be deprived of your name due to insufficient personnel. It’s recommended to replenish team members in a timely manner. You can go to any branch to register.]

“I don’t believe it,” Ann responded almost immediately, her voice fluttering uncontrollably. “Nemo is a superior demon, and the Abyss is that kid’s home turf. Oliver, what the hell—”

“He’s not dead.” Oliver’s voice is very smooth, but his smile is very reluctant.

Oliver looked at the former commander of the Knight of Judgement. His eyes stayed on Jesse for a short while, and finally stopped at Ann.

What a difference. The Queen of Alban took a deep breath. When she first picked up the two little bastards, Oliver Ramon’s eyes were clear and pure, with a carefree happiness. There was nothing left of that happiness at the moment; only a sad vicissitude remained, like two deep wells.

Oliver retracted the black badge, closed his eyes, and breathed slowly.

“If you are free, I want to hold a team meeting immediately. Ann, is Bagelmaurus here?”

“Yes, its situation isn’t right. I still want to ask you—it keeps smothering itself into the sofa and won’t come out to talk.”

“I know you have a lot of questions to ask, Ann… But now, please tell me where it is first, and I will pick it up. It won’t refuse.”

“Although I really want to say, ‘Yes, Captain, I’ll get people to prepare the room, tables and chairs’, Oliver Ramon, please answer my question positively—what’s going on with Nemo?”

“I don’t know how he is.” Oliver’s speed of speech was very slow, as if every word was consuming his strength. “That’s the problem.”

“Ann, I made a promise with Nemo… When we get back from this mission, he wanted to have a good talk with you, and I’ll be there with him.”

Oliver put his hand on the door handle. He turned his back to Ann. His voice was very soft.

“Now I’ll fulfill this agreement for him.”

Ann didn’t ask any more. She glanced at Oliver deeply. “…Since you said this.”

Oliver went to pick up Bagelmaurus, and the queen went to prepare the room, while Adrian Cross tightened the buckle on the turtleneck monk’s uniform and stood up a little unsteadily.

“I guess we still have a little time before the meeting.” The former knight stood in front of the window. His dark brown eyes were shining like clear amber in the brilliant light.

“I have a question for you, Jesse.”

After that, he smiled and opened his mouth again.

“…No, I have a question for you, Zenni.”

---

The author has something to say:

Furry Jesse, furry Zenni.

Natural fur, with its own incense.

Knight Commander: It feels okay.

——

Grey Parrot: I’m not happy TAT

---

<<< || Table of Contents || >>>

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

---

Chapter 245: Uninhabited Town

The bottom of the Abyss was submerged in silence.

In the previous battle, Nemo stopped his breathing and heartbeat, and what poured into his ears at this moment was dead emptiness. Not long ago, Ulysses was still roaming around here. Even if there were many bold superior demons who came to prey on the corpses, they wouldn’t be stupid enough to alarm the terrifying killing machine.

The silent darkness completely buried him, a feeling that Nemo was familiar with. He was free to peer into the thick darkness nearby, and he could sense that vast and infinite void around him. It was a pity that since the surface was assigned to Jesse Dylan, he could no longer monitor everything on the surface.

Nemo had once thought there wasn’t much difference.

Perception had never been about vision, and those tiny lives squirming in the distance didn’t have any color. From the moment he approached the sun and curled up his body, he never saw the real sunlight again.

Next came a mixture of deafness and blindness that blended into the eternal night. The vast majority of his own memories were faded into the background. If Nemo was happy, the body of the “Demon King” would stay motionless in place for a hundred years, and all perception would be used only for thinking and calculation.

A day, a year, or decades in boundless darkness. In his perception, there used to be not much difference.

Now the situation had changed—the darkness in memory had never been so boring, and the time had never been so long.

Maybe this was a side effect of “emotions”.

Nemo restarted his heartbeat and breathing. Several balls of light rose, illuminating the space within a radius of a kilometer for him and at the same time illuminating the pile of demon corpses in the distance.

The temperature here was extremely low, so the corpses decayed very slowly, not even keeping up with the speed at which they were slowly absorbed by the bottom of the Abyss.

After a fierce battle with Ulysses for half a day, there wasn’t much sand left on the ground in this area; only countless deep pits and mangled bodies remained. Nemo looked around and walked in a certain direction.

He remembered this place. He remembered every place.

More than twenty years ago, he met Flint Lopez, who was separated from the team in order to hold off a wanderer nearby. This saved him a lot of trouble, as he didn’t need to consider other ways to contact that human.

At that time, he led Flint forward in the dark, towards the distant expedition.

Nemo walked alone along the route in his memory, and the cold fine sand reappeared, flowing between his toes. In this way, on barefoot, he walked through his memory again.

The way Flint Lopez spoke was close to Oliver’s. Except for when he drank or slept, the leader of the Tin Soldiers kept confiding in the darkness constantly, either humming songs that didn’t sound natural but were still pleasant to the ears…

[You spread the flames in my world, that painful sweet brilliance. I will follow you through the ruins and smoke. Sandra, Sandra. Will you shed a tear for me like the dew glistening on my tombstone?]

Flint Lopez didn’t seem to know what fear was. His voice was smooth and cheerful. It was just that the palms of his hands were cold and soaked in sweat.

At the beginning, he only felt that the human attitude was quite positive and his strength was impressive, just like examining an object.

[It’s too quiet here; it’s so quiet that people panic.]

Flint’s most negative thing was just this sentence, which he said in a joking tone.

Now that he thought about it, holding the hand of a monster and walking in the vast and desolated darkness, he didn’t know the destination with a party that he didn’t know if he could trust, but he still had to move forward for the sake of love and responsibility…

What kind of fear would that be like?

Nemo stretched out a hand, and the long five fingers belonging to a human were extremely pale and covered with blood under the dim lighting. He unconsciously sighed softly and then moved forward.

[Aren’t you afraid?] He once asked Flint like this.

It wasn’t out of sympathy; half in earnest to get an answer, and half to give the other party the inducement that “he could empathize”. At that time, he coldly collected information and observed the negative effects of the emotion “fear”, even if he had never tasted fear himself.

[My lover and companion are still waiting for me—I am so happy; I will definitely survive!]

Flint Lopez, at the time, replied like this, full of confidence in his words.

Nemo pursed his lips and looked at the monstrous pile of corpses on both sides of the passage. Countless shriveled and cloudy eyes hadn’t had time to close. Frosted entrails were stacked on the sand. A deformed giant mouth was cracked by external forces and the fangs were as uneven and dense as a tombstone cluster. The Flint Lopez in his memory was strong enough to be able to detect these things.

What kind of mood was that human in to give such an answer?

In the past, he had failed to understand, but now that question had returned to him after decades of drifting in the void.

Aren’t you afraid, Nemo Light?

Fear never left, he replied to himself. Now Nemo was worried that his trust had failed, resisting the arrival of death and fearing that Oliver Ramon would die before they met again.

He was terrified.

But he still decided to believe in Oliver Ramon, and this decision would not change. Right now, Nemo was convinced that if a decision couldn’t even make him feel scared, the decision itself wouldn’t be of much value.

The same was true of trust, which was originally the weight he personally chose to carry.

He thought to himself that fear wasn’t a bad thing. Fear meant that he still had cherished things that could be lost, and he still had things worth guarding.

After all, feelings were nothing more than a kind of weapon. It just depended on whether the blade was facing oneself or the enemy.

The bones in the fine sand could no longer pierce his skin, but Nemo could still feel them with the soles of his feet. He didn’t know how long he walked, but after arriving at a gentle sandy slope, Nemo stopped. The voice in his memories sounded again…

[I see the light of my team! Thank you very much, kind wanderer. I don’t know how to express my gratitude, so I’ll give you this. If you have the opportunity to go to the surface, you can find me with this, and we can talk about it then.]

Flint Lopez gave the gold pendant to him, and Nemo did bring it to the surface, but they had missed each other. Flint took him to Roadside Town, and after that they didn’t have much interaction.

Except for the day Flint died, Nemo’s last memory of the innkeeper was in the small library with the smell of paper rolls.

[Don’t work so hard. Let’s buy some candy for the little ones at the Light family.]

They never knew anything about each other.

It was such a shame.

Nemo subconsciously touched his empty chest with his left hand because of the loss of the pendant, and the end of the blood-stained staff poked into the fine sand. A few thousand meters away was the end of the memories…

Here he personally destroyed the Tin Soldiers Regiment Group, killed Ann’s brother, and killed the Hero he had dreamed of.

Nemo lowered his gaze.

The emotions of sorrow and regret were still there, but after gaining insight into everything, the guilt that seemed to crush him before had reduced a lot. Long memories wrapped them all in and finally turned into solemn and quiet respect.

This was no longer a simple source of intelligence; feelings made his calculations complicated and unstable.

After all, apart from position and purpose, there were still many things worth stopping for. The pale humanoid Demon King bowed his head slightly and solemnly saluted the long-abandoned battlefield.

Respect his opponent as well as himself. Respect the irreversible past, respect the future that wouldn’t be repeated.

After the ceremony, Nemo squatted down and pressed one hand on the ground.

First there was a little light, then the entire blue sky. The top-level illusion was activated again. A Roadside Town full of sunshine but empty of people appeared at the bottom of the Abyss, swallowing the desolated battlefield, and he himself was standing in the familiar library, next to the old wooden table, with the false sunlight passing through the branches in front of the door, casting patches of light on the dark wooden tabletop.

Pulling away from the highchair in the fantasy, Nemo leaned his staff against the wall and sat firmly at the table. There were still a lot of books piled up on the table that had been returned to their place. He picked one casually. The text on it was no different from what he remembered.

It was just that there were no human voices.

Nemo didn’t create false pedestrians this time. Not because he didn’t want to do this, but simply because he couldn’t do it. He stretched out his hand for the second time, and an illusion resembling Oliver Ramon appeared at the door of the library. Unfortunately, only the body shape was similar, and his face was extremely blurred.

Of course, he remembered Oliver’s facial features, but the sense of incongruity was always present, and he always felt that the illusion he created was missing something crucial. Nemo retracted his hand and turned the pages of the book in his hand again. The illusion twisted for a moment before gradually dissipating.

After the phantom dissipated, Nemo’s gaze lingered meaninglessly in the void for a few seconds.

For some reason, the sunny scenery in front of him made him sadder than the terrifying pile of corpses.

Nemo couldn’t name the emotion stuck in his chest at this time. It was warm and heavy with sharp thorns, making his breathing fast and urgent. After a moment of contemplation, he tried to tug at the corners of his mouth, showing a smile that no one could see.

There was no pain that made it impossible to breathe, no heartbreaking sorrow, but a few drops of transparent liquid fell on the page. When he saw them, he realized that his cheeks were moist.

During the long and quiet journey, Nemo seriously considered the possibility of going directly to the surface for a while, but if he pushed down that fence, countless superior demons would definitely take the opportunity to invade the surface and completely destroy everything. But if he used the old method, he had to use an external force to close his cognition, but this time, no one would take his head away.

A solution hadn’t appeared so far, and every path led to a miss and destruction.

For as long as he could remember, Oliver had always surprised him. Perhaps with all his computing power, he couldn’t guess the next move of this ordinary lover, just as he couldn’t figure out what kind of expression Oliver, on the surface, had right now.

…Please surprise me one more time, Ollie.

The Demon King didn’t cast a cleansing spell. He wiped the blood stains on his hands with a handkerchief, wiped away the tears from the pages of the book, and continued to read the long-winded book describing forest herbs. If he ignored the unoccupied silence, the scene was warm and ordinary.

What was the second half of Flint’s song again?

“Beautiful Sandra, my beloved.”

He seemed to want to break the silence, recalling Flint Lopez’s voice. Nemo hummed softly in a careless manner.

“Are you waiting at the end of the road, watching my burning soul. I would like to give up the rest of my life to look at you one more time.”

The Central Church, The Holy Land, Hatfield.

Hamlin Elmer opened his eyes and looked at the sun that he hadn’t seen for a long time in shock. He shook his groggy head, struggled to get out of bed, and fixed himself on the floating chair. After repeatedly confirming that this was the first floor, Hamlin rushed out of the window directly.

There were two dragons collapsed in the yard. The blue dragon looked extremely weak. It lay on the ground, rolling its eyes vigorously, but it didn’t mean to move. The red dragon put its long neck on the back of the blue dragon and snored while sleeping.

The members of the Dragon clan hadn’t left yet. Hamlin swallowed and looked to the other side…

A stout black horse hung its head meekly, motionless. The leader of Tumbleweed was saddling the horse alone, with his back to him. Although his aura was a lot weaker, Hamlin was very sure that the knight was Oliver Ramon.

The other aura that had been accompanying him was nowhere to be found.

“Mr. Ramon!” Hamlin drove the chair forward and opened his hoarse voice. “I—”

His back was frozen for a while, then Oliver Ramon turned his face.

Hamlin stiffly held back the half-word he hadn’t had time to say.

The leader of Tumbleweed was in very bad condition.

In this church, Hamlin had seen countless negative feelings, but he wasn’t even sure whether the other party’s emotions were negative at the moment. It wasn’t despair caused by sadness, nor was it remorse, grief, or uncertainty. Oliver Ramon looked as if he was separated from the world. Those green eyes were indeed looking at him, but they seemed to be looking at a non-existent point in the void.

Hamlin couldn’t understand the other person’s emotions. Too many things were mixed, and he could barely find a feeling that he was more familiar with.

Mr. Ramon was smiling politely, but his whole being exuded a strange sense of loneliness.

“Hamlin.” The other party’s tone was very soft. “What can I do for you?”

“I… After we came out, the fanatics wanted to cause trouble for Mr. Cross. Something seemed to happen later, and I wasn’t very sober at that time. Is Mr. Cross okay?”

“Mr. Cross is still resting. He will be fine.” Oliver nodded. “As for what happened, you can ask the Preceptor Bishop. I submitted the mission report not long ago, and now he should have finished reading it.”

As he spoke, he took out a piece of horse snack from a small bag and carefully fed the black horse. The treat was a little too dry, and the shape wasn’t delicate; it seemed homemade. The black horse chewed in small bites and snorted cautiously.

“Um, okay.” Hamlin retracted his gaze. “I… I haven’t had the chance to say it. Now that my eyes are back, I’m not a member of the choir anymore. I want to thank you. Thank Tumbleweed—”

“My teammate told me that at a critical point, you provided Mr. Cross with mana. We should thank you.”

Oliver smiled and shook his head.

“About your legs… My teammate said that because they never existed, he can’t give you a new pair, but you can go to a necromancer named ‘Medes’. He may have other ways. I have already written down his location and put it in a black envelope on your desk.”

“Thank you, I’ll be sure to pay him a visit! Having said that, where are you going?” Hamlin tugged at his nightgown, which was completely unsuitable for formal conversation. He lowered his gaze a little blankly. He had lost his eyesight for too long, and even if he wanted to hide his embarrassment, he hardly knew where to look. “If you are not busy, would you like to visit my house? I think my brother will welcome you too—”

Not knowing if it had been too long since he had observed others, Oliver Ramon smiled again, a smile that was dull and tired when the sun was clearly shining so brightly.

“I’m very sorry, Hamlin. Some other time.”

The knight in black armor put away his horse snacks and looked in the direction of the gate, as if waiting for something.

Hamlin subconsciously followed the other’s gaze.

A middle-aged man in a uniform robe stepped into the backyard with the emblem of the jeweler Tristan’s family on his chest. He glanced at the two dragons in the yard, twitched his neatly trimmed beard, and barely maintained the stability of his expression.

“Your order, Mr. Ramon.” The middle-aged man bowed slightly and glanced at Hamlin a few steps away from the corner of his eyes.

“It’s okay, I don’t mind.” Oliver nodded at him.

The middle-aged man first took out the neatly folded parchment roll and quill pen from his pocket, and then took out a small box with a delicate design from his chest. He stamped the ring on the mechanism at the top of the box and drew a rather complicated array in the air, before the box clicked open.

“Your order: a pair of wedding rings.” There was well-trained politeness in that person’s tone. “The bill has been paid. This is the feedback contract of the Tristan family. In the next ten days, you can find someone to identify gems and materials. After confirming that it is okay, please sign here.”

Oliver looked at the pair of simple and generous rings inlaid with black gems. A few minutes later, he took the paper roll directly and signed his name.

“Thank you for your trust.” The middle-aged man raised his eyebrows quite unexpectedly and continued to recite his thanks in a well-trained manner.

Oliver nodded politely, and then never looked at them again. He seemed to have completely forgotten Hamlin and the middle-aged man, and even the two dragons. The young leader of Tumbleweed gently rubbed the pair of rings with his fingers, moving gently as if they would be melted by his body temperature.

After nearly half an hour, he remembered the existence of other people in the yard.

“…I’m very sorry, Hamlin,” Oliver repeated. He carefully put the box in his pocket and sealed it with a large array. “Another day. I… have something else to do.”

“Okay.” Hamlin moved his stiff neck and nodded vigorously. He tore his gaze back from the pair of rings, trying not to make himself look too curious. It seemed that Mr. Ramon was planning to propose in the near future. Since he has such sweet expectations, the loneliness and exhaustion that surround him may be just him seeing things.

“I wish you success. I—I mean the marriage proposal,” he added in a low voice, secretly glancing at the spire of the church in the center of his eyes. “Brother told me, Mr. Light, right? Praise Zenni. Uh, although it’s not appropriate to mention it here, but… but I hope you can be happy.”

Oliver turned over and got on the horse, squeezing the reins tightly. Excessive force caused his knuckles to turn slightly white and lose their blood color.

“We will,” he replied, still smiling. “…But first, I need to formally introduce him to my companions.”

He wasn’t seeing things this time, Hamlin thought in a daze.

No matter how he looked at that smile, it was extremely sad.

---

The author has something to say:

This arc is finished!!!

…The next arc is the last. _(:з”∠)_

Then there will be a few extras like this (^ρ^)/

---

Kinky Thoughts:

What a heart-wrenching arc. Now everything has come together. There’s only one more arc after this and then a few extras. Below is the arc summary.

After Ann ascended to the throne, Tumbleweed temporarily split up while Ann got things in order as Queen of Alban. Nemo and Oliver went to investigate the Gatekeepers. With the help of Telaranea, they were able to find the Gatekeeper who transacted with Flint Lopez, who gave him a new arm and a cradle to save Oliver as a baby. In return, Flint gave him information that he found at the bottom of the Abyss.

Meanwhile, Jesse followed Adrian, who was idle as he tried to search for a being that he had some connection to in the past. Then they were summoned by the Pope. Per the contract signed, Tumbleweed was to act as escort to the Laddism Church reconnaissance team. It seemed that someone or something had sabotaged the teleportation gateways connecting the Abyss to the surface. The reconnaissance team had to journey into the Abyss to investigate, and Tumbleweed’s job was to protect them. Joining this team was also Godwin, who wanted to investigate Nemo Light, and Debby.

To test whether Nemo could return from the Abyss, they infiltrated the Mercenary Guild to send Pandorater back into the Abyss. Using Oliver’s newfound power, they were able to merge through the walls and free Pandorater and sent her back to the Abyss and were able to test that Nemo could return to the surface despite his current cognition.

Thus, the team gathered in Return Town, the city closest to the surface from the Abyss, and ventured down. During an investigation of the first teleportation gateway, it was discovered that the teleportation gateway was meddled with and that someone had changed the coordinates of it. The reconnaissance team then changed their goal to repairing the gateways.

Things seemed to go well until they reached the Gravity Maze and encountered Witherspoon, who Nemo had sent back in arc 2. Bagelmaurus stepped up to the plate and merged back with its original body and fended off Witherspoon, saving the team.

When the reconnaissance team reached the last two gateways, the team had to split up, with Nemo and Oliver going to the gateway closest to where the Demon King was, while Jesse and Adrian went to the hidden emergency gateway. Here we learned that it was Aurorae who had tampered with the gateways, trying to delay the future expedition.

Adrian and Jesse fell into a trap at the emergency gateway, and Jesse exhausted all his powers in order to save the team. The team was able to escape, but Jesse reverted back to his beast form, which now Arian realized was the being that he had been searching for all his life, because it was the being that saved him when he was young. However, the beast didn’t look human, and the people on the team immediately attacked it, using it as an excuse to really kill Adrian as they deemed him to be an apostate. Adrian defended Jesse and ultimately got killed. Jesse woke up and taught everyone a lesson, and it was finally revealed what everyone suspected. He was the “god” of the surface, and all surface creatures provided him with energy. Feeling bored, he took an interest in Adrian, who was the only single star in his starry sky that never wavered even the slightest. He wanted to see Adrian waver, but to the very end, he never did. Jesse, through some confounded feelings, gave Adrian a piece of his flesh and resurrected him.

Meanwhile, Nemo and Oliver’s team fell into a trap set by Aurorae. The trap was going to annihilate the entire team, so Nemo devised a plan. Oliver was to split the space in the Abyss and transport the team out, while Nemo stayed behind as the tether. Thus, the team was able to escape their impending death, but Nemo was dragged into the bottom of the Abyss, where he encountered the remnants of Ulysses.

Nemo and Ulysses had an epic battle in which Nemo emerged victorious. This was now where we learn the truth behind everything. The world in which Stray was set in was actually on top of a giant creature named the Pillar of the World. In the void (space), it found an empty space to curl up and sleep near the sun. Civilization then started to develop on top of its body, which became the surface. Along the way, a flying cocoon entered its realm and made a proposal. Having just one source of magic pathway would eventually lead to stagnation and less evolution, and there would be less information for the Pillar of the World to collect, which would be detrimental to its evolution, so if it gave the cocoon a little part of its energy source, the cocoon would create a new magic circuit in this world to advance evolution and civilization. The Pillar of the World agreed, and this is why there’s abyssal and surface magic/creatures.

At first, the Pillar of the World would reward the strong creatures who ventured into the Abyss with bone jade, but then realized that these creatures became greedier and kept wanting more, wanting to further dig into the Abyss for the bone jade. To deter them from harming it, the Pillar of the World took off a piece of flesh, which became the first “Demon King”. Now strong warriors would battle this Demon King and when its defeated, it would give out the bone jade, all while the Demon King would relay all necessary information to the Pillar of the World, keeping the balance in check and giving it more data for its growth.

It was about 1,000 years ago that the Pillar of the World learned of an organization called the Gatekeepers, which had the ability to create a new “God”. This scared the Pillar of the World, as if this new God was created, a new magic system would be born that would inevitably suck away the current system that provided the Pillar of the World (Nemo) energy. Not only that, both Jesse Dylan and Nemo had put limits on how much power a creature under their rule could ever have. With a new circuit system, there were no limits to what they could control, and this could eventually overtake Nemo and become the new master of this world.

Thus, Nemo devised a plan. Using the last Demon King (Ulysses), he convinced Flint to take his skull out of the Abyss so that Nemo could ascend to the surface without breaking the “law”. Nemo’s original goal was just to be the last reconnaissance for the Pillar of the World before it made the decision to fly into the sun and cause a huge catastrophe that would wipe out most of the life that was born on it in order to kill the potential new God that would eventually be born and could usurp it or move a bit to kill most of the surface.

Well, as we all know, things didn’t go as planned and Nemo set out on his own adventure. The Pillar of the World never regarded “emotions” as something necessary and even deemed them to be a weakness, so whenever it collected information, it would filter that out. Nemo finally learned the truth when he fell into the bottom of the Abyss and was flooded by all its memories, knowing now that he was the consciousness of the Pillar of the World, a piece of flesh that it threw off so it could do its investigative work, similar to how superior demons would throw their flesh off to reach the surface.

Now that Nemo had fully regained his cognition, he was now bound to the bottom of the Abyss by the law, while Oliver was still on the surface.

Side Characters:

Hamlin Elmer, who was Oliver Elmer’s brother, worked as part of the choir. He was part of the reconnaissance team assisting the Laddism fanatics with spiritual sacrifice as he had ample magic but was born handicapped. He joined as part of the choir, but had his eyesight taken away per the contract until he completes his servitude or buys out his contract. With his help, he was able to provide Adrian some last-minute resistance before Jesse woke up and thus was spared from a disastrous fate. Now that Oliver Elmer was rich due to Oliver’s bet, he planned to leave the choir, buy back his eyesight, and get out of dodge from being a choir member.

Aurorae past was revealed. He was a lantern-blind bug born at the bottom of the Abyss. They are superior demons but with primitive minds. But he was special. He was born with intelligence but lacked legs and thus couldn’t move. Due to him being intelligent and different, he was abandoned by his own kind and left to waste away at the bottom of the Abyss. Ulysses at that time, was experimenting with ways to reach the surface and decided to nurture the abandoned Aurorae and gave him a name.

Aurorae mistook this “kindness” and considered Ulysses his father. He kept going to the surface and coming back to report it to his father, as he thought his father wanted to know more about the surface. Ulysses created Telaranea for Aurorae so he wouldn’t have to keep splitting off his flesh (which would have had a serious negative impact), but Aurorae refused to use it, so Ulysses considered Telaranea a failed experiment (which is why Telaranea had contempt for the Demon King). Ulysses also experimented with trying to split off his own flesh using the corewen flat snake (Bagelmaurus), as no other demon could handle a piece of his own flesh.

Aurorae thought his father wanted to see the beautiful surface. Thus, on his last trip to the surface, he became Aurorae the Demon Slayer to keep the world order intact so if his father ever got the chance to reach the surface, he could see the beautiful view as how it was. This was to atone for his “sin” for “abandoning” his father, as he feared going back to his dying body in the bottom of the Abyss, where he would spend at least a hundred years in the darkness as his body slowly rotted away.

Eventually, he found out who Nemo really was, and they had a heartwarming reunion, during which Aurorae passed away.

That’s it for the summary. My god, it’s really long, but there was a TON of information to unpack. I may have missed some important things, so let me know if I did.

---

<<< || Table of Contents || >>>

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

---

Chapter 244: The Strongest Demon King

Now Nemo remembered everything.

For example, hundreds of millions of years ago.

At that time, he picked a relatively soft sun and curled up in the most suitable position. First, selectively absorb the land that was free in the void, and then prepare the water source to provide a solid foundation for the birth of life.

…At first, he was simply a caretaker.

In fact, life wasn’t only cultivated by the Pillar of the World. As long as the conditions were right, there would also be life in some barren corners of the void. After experiencing cruel and disorderly elimination, trying countless absurd possibilities, the final survivors retained relative stability and gradually evolved—stumbling and groping forward in the darkness.

But nothing was eternal, and those lives that lacked restraint would eventually destroy themselves or die from the apoptotic sun.

The Pillar of the World also didn’t create life out of thin air. All it could do was guide, support, and transform, providing a place for the newborn races to live, creating a suitable environment, and providing the necessary energy for the confused and ignorant newborn races.

The world on the Pillar of the World was extremely gentle. It wasn’t as desolate and difficult to survive in as the other ownerless places.

The rudiments of civilization began to emerge, and the intelligent lift kept expanding and developing. As knowledge and intelligence continued to accumulate, it quickly reached its peak and then the growth rate immediately slowed down. At that time, Nemo didn’t feel impatient. After all, the surface was developed based on magic circuits that he had provided. It made sense that the foundation was homogenous and lacking in change.

He waited patiently for other visitors.

He didn’t have to wait long. A floating cocoon floated in the void and was attracted by the booming life and landed in his world. They quickly reached a deal, just as their respective ancestors had done for billions of years.

[Finding that he couldn’t beat the master, the weak bard had an idea. He proposed a deal to the host—”I’ll provide you with what you want. In exchange, you can give me some food. The ones that are farthest from the table, just the ones that you like the least”. How smart, right?]

Jesse Dylan had hinted this to him a long time ago.

Nemo set aside a portion of the race that provided him with a source of energy for this hungry floating cocoon, and in return, the other side would introduce a new power system that was fresh but also had a small risk of fatalities…

The intelligent race from which the floating cocoon would continue to develop would live based on the external power system of it. One after another, completely different theories of knowledge would be born, and then they would bear fruit.

Those unknown fruits did have the possibility of harming themselves.

And this was exactly what Nemo needed. Strange spell structure, strange knowledge, and strange stimuli. Controllable damage that came entirely from the outside world was necessary, as it could accelerate his evolution more than anything else.

Sure enough, the race under the jurisdiction of the floating cocoon flourished quickly, and then began to explore the Abyss.

Nemo would originally place the bone jade directly at the bottom of the Abyss, to reward these brave surface civilizations for pushing their limits, but he quickly discovered that their development route was more destructive than he had imagined…

The expedition team on the surface was no longer satisfied by the small number of resources and more advanced weapons were always needed. They began to try to use corrosive surface magic to excavate the bottom of the Abyss without restraint, looking for more bone jade.

They tickled Nemo a little and were quickly alerted as a result. If this was allowed to continue, perhaps one day he would really be eroded by a mutant surface spell and be seriously injured.

Thus, he changed his plan and stopped giving it out.

He took out a piece of flesh and gathered all the biological intelligence he had acquired and made this creation the strongest “life” in the world, then attached his consciousness to it.

He began to give the bone jade at a clear price—to obtain the precious resource, they must first come with the strongest knowledge that could surpass the previous era.

And what could represent the peak knowledge of a civilization would always be weapons and war.

Sure enough, after changing his plan, the life on the surface no longer destroyed indiscriminately and instead attacked the “guardian”. The commanding races on the surface began to call the strange “life” the Demon King and regarded bone jade as a reward for defeating it, and they stopped asking for it indiscriminately under deterrence.

The flesh separated from the body was destroyed, filtered, and recovered by the body, and the new information could be safely obtained.

Those surface powerhouses who died underground would also be dealt with together, providing him with countless knowledge, language, and combat experience derived from the surface.

[Why is there always… only such an abnormal life at the bottom of the abyss? Why is there an expedition if it’s claimed that the Demon King will not come to the surface?]

The surface was also aware of this.

Nemo had thought that things could stabilize here.

Although the pain of being killed again and again would make him slightly unhappy, whenever the flesh was withdrawn and the emotions were removed, he would become calm again.

Until thousands of years ago.

He obtained a somewhat unpleasant intelligence from the corpses of the expeditionary fighters. An organization claiming to be the Gatekeepers was trying to “create a God”, and there wasn’t much problem with their theoretical direction.

This made him extremely vigilant.

Everything had a price. While the intelligent races enjoyed a comfortable environment, both Nemo and the floating cocoon that now called itself “Jesse Dylan” would instinctively suppress it, creating an upper limit to the abilities of all creatures.

[This wasn’t such a big deal. To make an inappropriate analogy—when people raise fuller goats, they must first domesticate them to remove the possibility of them hurting others. All possible injuries must be within a controllable range, which isn’t difficult to understand, right?]

Jesse himself knew this very well.

The delineation of boundaries was very simple—if a creature surpassed that boundary, it would have the same qualifications as them to gain power from other lives.

Not to mention the not-so-strong floating cocoon, even compared to itself, that creature would have an unparalleled local advantage. In contrast, it was the true kinship of all life after all. In any masterless world, if such a strong thing was naturally produced, it would very likely become the master of that world.

But not here.

If that creature plundered all the dominion of other lives in his hands, he would quickly weaken. Fortunately, he still had time to spread out his body, rush to the sun, and burn out the existing world. If he was unlucky and the creature happened to find the right way and decide to take the initiative to attack…

There was a high possibility that he would be killed, just as humans die of unknown maladies.

If the existing civilization still had high value, Nemo could consider watching for a while. Unfortunately, both the Abyss and the surface that was willingly destroying each other had once again reached the bottleneck of development and weren’t moving forward.

It was time to change the coping method again, was what Nemo decided so.

Then he set a plan into motion.

And now, as he had speculated about a certain possibility, under the influence of useless feelings, he was resisting his original will.

Half of his body was shredded by the shadow blade, and in the process of regenerating his bones, Nemo struggled to avoid another attack by Ulysses. The blood couldn’t stop gushing, but at the moment, he wouldn’t simply die because of blood loss.

The pain of bone growth was unimaginable, and in order to always assess the degree of damage to his body, Nemo didn’t dare to abandon the pain. He gasped. His incomplete robe was completely soaked in blood and flesh, but before he could adjust his balance, another wave of attacks hit his head accurately.

Ulysses was like a sophisticated puppet. There was no hesitation, no fatigue, only endless deadly attacks.

He must be equally calm and attentive.

Nemo took a half step back, sharply side-stepped, and quickly protected his head with a shadow shield. A sharp limb with corrosive spells slashed diagonally across the shadow shield. After a teeth-clenching sound, it directly pierced Nemo’s shoulder on the other side.

Blood splattered everywhere.

Nemo didn’t waste time screaming or drawing breath. He had already stopped breathing and quickly retreated without saying a word as he blasted a series of delayed explosion array, waiting for Ulysses to follow.

There was no time to falter, no time to despair.

During the retreat, Nemo stepped on something, and the sound of metal rubbing against the sand sounded under his feet. Then there was a familiar aura…

His counterfeit staff was long mutilated from the battle, but Nemo still picked it up, clenched it in his hand, and stared straight in the direction of Ulysses in the darkness.

But a few seconds later…

An explosion was suddenly triggered shaking the space and several heavy alien limbs broke to the ground. Then there was a sticky sound of flesh, as they grew out from the fracture, becoming intact again. With his senses fully open, Nemo coldly “watched” the newborn limbs shrink, skillfully avoiding the next few floating arrays without even a half-surprise look on his face.

It seemed that this trick couldn’t be used too often.

Ulysses’ attack wasn’t disordered. While fighting, it was still analyzing intelligence related to the battle. From moves, spells, to attack habits, that body without a self was growing rapidly.

Just as he had planned.

Before the arrival of the last expeditionary force, when he was the real “Ulysses”, Nemo marked the teleportation array in the depths with a deadly spell that was activated regularly. As long as the visitor’s behavior wasn’t too much, the second “Ulysses” he created would subconsciously avoid those two places, reducing the risk of exposure.

In the meantime, it could also be a stumbling block for the next expedition.

Under his command, Flint helped him remove the head responsible for intelligence collection, temporarily suppressing his self-awareness. He got a perfect body—close to human and knew nothing about the world.

With an instinctive desire for information, it was only a matter of time before this body left the Abyss. Even if the luck was extremely bad, a hundred years was enough.

As for the recovery plan, he also planned it perfectly…

Nemo waved his regrown left hand, and countless sharp shadow thorns pierced Ulysses, causing the latter to let out a low roar. Black thunder dots with a scarlet halo instantly filled the entire space—except for the top part. The end of the thunder and lightning touched a certain height in the darkness and disappeared silently.

Sure enough.

The moment Ulysses discovered him, the Abyss was completely closed, cutting off all possibility of reinforcements’ joining. Just like every previous expedition.

A perfect execution ground.

Although the magic power was comparable, Ulysses’ body was tougher than that of humans and was more suitable for fighting. Not only that, but its skills were also gradually becoming stronger, while he would become exhausted, shaken by useless feelings, and eventually lose hope in the endless battle.

He had considered entering the battle with a zero chance of winning.

A cold shadow blade grazed his neck, almost cutting Nemo’s head off. Blood spurted and the side effects of blood loss made his knees soft.

Resist as planned; fail as planned.

Spitting out the blood-mixed with mud and sand in his mouth, Nemo supported his hands on the ground and barely stood up.

What is Oliver doing now? Nemo thought somewhat distractedly as a squirming black shadow stuck to the sound while he was awkwardly avoiding a series of bombardments of magic arrays.

Speaking of which, it had only been about half a day, and the load on the cracking space tunnel was extremely heavy. Oliver’s physical strength may not be able to recover at the moment.

Jesse Dylan would tell him the truth.

Even if he didn’t mention it, Dylan would most likely guess his thoughts—The consciousness of the Pillar of the World ascended to the surface, but it wasn’t out of pure curiosity.

If everything was normal, he himself would’ve slightly shrunk his body and changed his position. The surface’s crust would tear apart, ushering in a great natural disaster for the surface and the Abyss, but a few hardy beings would survive this catastrophe, reconstruct civilization from scratch, and create new and intelligent beings.

If the Gatekeeper’s experiment was unfortunately successful and a mutant really appeared and was able to retain its mind, Nemo would spread his wings and fly to the sun without a care in the world, completely destroying the entire world and killing the deadly danger while it was still in its cradle.

No matter which one he chooses in the end, today’s surface civilization was destined to be destroyed.

[You know very well.] The annoying voice in his heart resurrected. [You know very well that the disappearance of “Nemo Light” was only a matter of time, and the closure here won’t open until the battle is over.]

Nemo supported the staff with both hands, and the black shadow condensed into an ice cone and pierced Ulysses directly into its chest. He was also stabbed by several shadow thorns, and one leg was nailed down.

[The battle has lasted for a few hours, and your odds of winning haven’t changed. After the return of consciousness, you will be the first from the surface to be destroyed and “Nemo Light” will disappear.]

Nemo didn’t hesitate to cut off the leg with a dark shadow, and the familiar pain of flesh regrowing began to tear at his nerves again. He shook for a while, then stabilized his body, without any intention of flinching.

[Even if your feelings can keep you going endlessly, you don’t have time to find a way to contact the surface. Oliver Ramon will officially take action against you for the survival of the surface and your agreement. “Nemo Light” will disappear.]

The blood flowing out was used by him to draw an array. Nemo desperately tried to squeeze the new knowledge learned in his short adventure, mixed with existing experience, and tried to use abyssal magic to reproduce the erosion array from the Church of Silence.

One by one, bloody fishing nets entangled the huge monsters on the opposite side, and the hissing sound of flesh corrosion was particularly piercing.

[Even if a miracle happens, Oliver Ramon is unwilling to give up the monster under his feet, and he can’t come. It takes great strength to break this closure. If he doesn’t plunder from you, he won’t be able to grow to that point before his life span is exhausted. In this case, “Oliver Ramon” will disappear.]

Nemo took the opportunity to approach, but only succeeded in cutting off Ulysses’ three wrists and missed his opponent’s head. His body was still too small to be suitable for such a battle.

Ulysses didn’t seem to feel any pain. It closed its limbs like a spider, instantly protecting its head, and hundreds of impact arrays suddenly appeared in all directions.

The distance was too close, and Nemo received a solid blow behind his back. If he was still a normal human, this blow would have been enough to kill him on the spot—Ulysses had almost cut him into two sections.

Nemo was thrown into the ground fiercely, smashing into several huge rocks and finally crashing into the huge pit again. Stone debris and grains of sand were like raindrops of torrential rain as they fell continuously.

He stood up again, with a bloody, incomplete, and terrifying body.

[The so-called feelings cannot change this.]

‘How weird,’ Nemo thought to himself in the midst of endless pain. At this moment, he only felt a relief-like peace in his heart.

Before that, he had never thought about how much he loved Oliver Ramon. He had read enough shocking love stories to know that, in comparison to that, they were just an ordinary couple who didn’t quarrel very often.

Unlike lovers who had been together for decades, they hadn’t been together for that long.

Unlike lovers who live and die for each other and dance on the verge of death, they spend most of their time in search of peace.

Unlike lovers who were glued together in the beginning, as if they had found their missing half, they had too many differences, but they were just moving forward one step at a time, trying to hold each other’s hands tightly.

It stood to reason that such trivial and ordinary feelings should have been washed away by the onset of those huge memories a long time ago.

Incredible.

Nemo stood up again, and the dark shadow wrapped around his waist, allowing him to barely move as he recovered. Ulysses’ spell exploded in his ear, and blood kept dripping down his cheeks. The side of his head was burning with pain, but he couldn’t help showing a smile.

“That’s not true,” he opened his mouth and spoke in the darkness. “This kind of speculation lacks a very important condition—I believe in that person.”

“It’s not that I believe he won’t hurt me, it’s not that he will appear here in the next second. I believe he will struggle like me, trying to find that seemingly non-existent path. In this way, the current possibility isn’t complete.”

Yes, he just hadn’t come up with a solution to the current situation yet, but the matter of “survival” couldn’t continue under the premise that the “answer” must exist.

Suddenly, a thought appeared like a flash of lightning.

Nemo’s smile suddenly became bigger. He clenched the twisted and broken staff in his hand and chuckled softly.

“Ulysses,” he called to his opponent, who was desperately injecting murderous energy into the air, even if he knew that his opponent couldn’t understand.

“I have been killed countless times. Countless of time I’ve eliminated the faint pains and discomfort. I have also reunited with my body countless times, but there’s one problem. One small problem—”

The wound healed again, and the momentum around Nemo’s body suddenly ignited, spreading at a speed comparable to a quiet explosion.

“Since all feelings will be eliminated, why do I always remember to feed Aurorae?”

The answer may be simpler than he thought.

The Pillar of the World was constantly evolving and eliminating all factors that were detrimental to it. He had never had family, companions, or friends. It was natural to be exposed to negative feelings that disturbed him. This was conducive to evolution, as instinctive as a heartbeat.

…Then this is good.

This is enough.

The ground at the bottom of the Abyss was crumbling inch by inch, and even the closed shadows above began to tremble violently. Boosted by his superior magic, Nemo shot himself at Ulysses. He abandoned defense, abandoned evasion, and let those sharp limbs and spells cut off muscles and bones.

The world in front of him was twisting and collapsing. His discovery began to collapse, and the pain melted his bones, and his blood became cold, but the momentum and fighting spirit that broke out became more unreal, as if Nemo’s speed was getting faster in the process of losing his mind during his advance.

It’s fine as long as his head was still intact, as long as the basic body was still there.

Countless layers of defensive arrays were shattered, and countless layers of offensive arrays tore away his flesh, blood, and limbs. What he lost was replaced with black shadows, even if it seemed to be an extremely inefficient and stupid frontal assault…

Ulysses turned its head, finally concentrated all its energy, and laid the strongest defense in several directions that it had speculated. In an instant, Nemo didn’t change direction. He rushed directly at the huge head and clumsily rammed himself into it.

Cursed blood splashed into Ulysses’ eyes, and the monster paused for less than a second.

In this moment of stagnation, countless arrays wrapped around the shapeless staff. Nemo raised it high and pierced the head under him fiercely…

“This proves that ‘I am better than you’,” he said hoarsely while remaining calm as the arrays quickly chewed up the brain inside its head, followed by the entirety of the remaining body.

“This proves that ‘emotions are beneficial to evolution’.”

“This proves that I am the stronger one.”

Nemo stood between the disintegrated limbs. The closure at the bottom of the Abyss was dissipating, and Ulysses’ corpse was turning into a dark and viscous liquid, seeping into the ground.

“It doesn’t matter if I can’t leave here. It doesn’t matter if there is no answer. After returning to the body, it doesn’t matter if this feeling will be the cause of my death.”

Nemo sat on Ulysses’ only remaining head and looked into the dark sky. After the battle, the lantern blind bugs began to travel slowly again, and those huge eyes looked like tiny stars in the distance.

Tying his hair behind his head again, Nemo closed his eyes and pressed his hand on the lower part of his head. Using the remnants of Ulysses’ magic power, he tentatively penetrated part of his consciousness into the body.

There was no sign of resistance.

Very good.

The Demon King would evolve “every generation”, and every time he would gather knowledge, intelligence, and combat skills. The intelligence this time was a bit special. It was what the surface calls “emotions”.

Now it was time for him to wait for Oliver Ramon. It’s good to wait, but it’s okay not to wait. Whether he was coming to kill or love, it was just another possibility.

“I believe in you,” he said.

---

The author has something to say:

Nemo: I will give you a box of lunch, and you will give me a vaccine.

Jesse: Yes, yes.

↑↑↑A plain and simple deal.

—

Don’t get me wrong! This is not the climax of the whole book. There is another volume of this article… _(:””∠)_

---

Kinky Thoughts:

This chapter is so good! And it’s not the climax?!?!?!?! Yes, there is one more arc after this…

---

<<< || Table of Contents || >>>

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

---

Chapter 243: The Beginning of the Battle

After saying those words, Nemo Light—or the Demon King himself—drew his hand back and made a simple gesture.

The pain that lasted for several years stopped at that moment.

Aurorae touched the wall of the illusory bakery and felt the touch was rough and slightly cool. The air was faintly permeated with a reassuring aroma. Not far away, the chatter of passersby came faintly.

He looked at his hands. The cuffs of the waiter’s uniform were white and clean, leaving no traces of blood or sand, as if nothing had happened.

Since the death of its body, the flesh belonging to the lantern blind bug had begun to rot irreversibly. The eyeball provided by Telaranea could only delay the speed of its decay, but it couldn’t fundamentally solve this problem. The pain of death continued to gnaw at his internal organs from the inside, and now it finally stopped.

The gentle and dry air, a body without pain, the despair of dying not so long ago, was like a mirage.

But Aurorae didn’t believe that death was far away—he only felt colder, and an ominous chill extended from his limbs to his heart, and the expression of the black-haired young man in front of him became even sadder.

His father was grieving.

Aurorae didn’t know whether the tears flowing at the moment were due to reluctance or joy. He had never shed a tear before, and at this point didn’t know how to stop it. After living for too long, the demon slayer didn’t have many emotions left, and now they were squeezed together, and all melted into tears.

The sky in the illusion was getting brighter and the sun was about to rise.

“You don’t like the darkness.” Nemo touched his face. The action looked a little weird and jerky. “I’m… sorry. I’m not very good at handling situations like this.”

His voice was very soft, and he looked even sadder.

“How long do I have?” Aurorae coughed again, splattering blood on the white cuffs of the waiter’s uniform. Soiled again, he thought regretfully, as numbing dizziness crept up his spine.

“…Less than ten minutes.” Nemo closed his eyes. “That’s the best I can do. Aurorae, I’m sorry…”

“You don’t need to be sorry. This has taken longer than I thought. I am very happy, father.”

Aurorae could feel his long-stiff facial muscles twitching. It was probably a smile.

He once thought he had a lot to say.

But now, looking at the street in front of him, he was relieved. Even if he had many things to say, whether it was remorse, grief, or otherwise, it couldn’t make those missed times come back. There wasn’t much time left for him, and he didn’t want to waste it on expressing regrets.

“You’ve remembered it all.”

“Yes.”

“Don’t blame Telaranea too much. It doesn’t really hate you, father. It’s just…”

Remembering his partner, who was still waiting at the entrance of the Abyss, Aurorae chose the first topic in his gradually hazy consciousness.

“No, that’s my fault.”

Nemo hesitated for a moment, stretched out his hand awkwardly again, and patted him on the head. Aurorae suspected that he had learned this from some human, but at this moment, it was no longer important.

“Uh, I just wanted to make a flesh puppet for you to use to explore the surrounding. Finding that it reached self-awareness, I shouldn’t have simply identified it as a failure and…”

“It asked me if I wanted to have him for dinner. It was scared enough and still remember it to this day.” Aurorae let out a soft laugh, followed by a violent cough.

“You were only so young at that time. It was reasonable for you to eat it then… Well, it’s always good to eat more.” Nemo gestured and scratched his head habitually.

“Fortunately, I refused at that time.” Aurorae looked at the sky above his head, which was already slightly white as sunrise neared. “He’s a good partner. Father, I know you have had some conflicts…”

“Just different positions. I’m not sure what it thinks, but at least I don’t hold a grudge against it.” Nemo sighed. “Don’t worry. I won’t give it a hard time as long as Telaranea doesn’t overstep too much again.”

Aurorae nodded slightly. The arc of the smile at the corner of his mouth became wider.

“You said ‘worry’,” he muttered. “You’re different from before.”

Immediately, he got a somewhat awkward and detached hug, which made Aurorae’s eyes widen, and he couldn’t help but tremble a little.

“I can guess the reason behind the things you did,” the Demon King’s appearance of the young man said. “…You did a good job.”

“I saw the surface, Aurorae. I like the way it looks now. The stories you once told me are very interesting, but I’m just finding that out now. I never really understood you. I…”

Aurorae hesitated for a few seconds. He stretched out his hand and tentatively grabbed the clothing on Nemo’s back. Although the pain no longer bothered him, his eyelids gradually became heavy.

“I shouldn’t have said those things to you before.” Nemo seemed to try and tightened the hug.

“But I’m leaving you behind for the second time,” the demon slayer replied a little vaguely. He could feel the Demon King’s body stiffening. “I’ll never come back this time, and if I’m not there, you’ll be the only one…”

The spinning of his thoughts stagnated, but Nemo couldn’t suppress the sour pang in his heart.

The emotions that he had once regarded as useless were making it difficult for him to breathe. Yes, maybe it didn’t bring him any benefit at the moment, but it was able to give him an answer. A spell that could make the other person calmer.

“It’s okay.”

There was a bit of bitterness in his voice. Nemo patted the back of the demon in his arms. Its life was disappearing like flowing water, which caused a sour tingling somewhere in his chest.

“…I will be sad, but I will overcome this and remember you.”

Always remember. Not as a piece of intelligence, not as a tiny life that had been fed, but as someone who would cause pain and whom he would miss dearly.

“But if you continue to stay here alone like this…” Aurorae seemed to want to say something.

Nemo was silent for a moment. He probably knew what the other party wanted to say, and the guilt in Aurorae’s tone was almost palatable.

He didn’t realize it in time.

“Listen, Aurorae.”

Nemo grabbed the tip of Aurorae’s gray hair. He learned to touch emotions and, in the same way, learned to lie…

“I’ll be fine,” he lied. “If I can find a way to leave the first time, I can find a way to leave a second time. Unlike before, I will not deny my current feelings again… I still have unfinished things on the surface.”

“Unfinished…?”

“I fell in love with a human.”

The body of the demon in his arms struggled due to shock.

“You are right. I care about ‘that boy from Lopez’ from the bottom of my heart. I wouldn’t have been able to meet Oliver Ramon as I am now. You did a great job Aurorae… In a sense, you did save me.”

Even if he would be erased by Ulysses next, and this emotion would eventually turn into ashes, at this moment, he did have it.

This was enough.

“I will be fine,” he repeated. His tone habitually carried the majesty of a superior being. Nemo didn’t pause and continued to lie. “I won’t stay here. I won’t be alone. Trust me.”

“…I really hope I can investigate that human properly again.” Aurorae sighed in a low voice. “But now… I wish you could return to the surface as soon as possible, father. I hope Ramon is different from me. If it weren’t for me still being afraid and suspicious of you, I wouldn’t have found out about you…”

He said it softly, with a little bitterness mixed in with his smile.

“You’re gentler than I thought. My body was still alive before you left the abyss. That ‘Ulysses’ would attack all living things nearby, but never come near my essence… Even then, you remembered that I was here… to protect me…”

He let go of the hug. His orange-red eyes were half closed, and everything was getting darker.

“Look, father. Feelings aren’t useless, whether they are mine or yours. They kept me alive so much longer than when I should’ve died.”

Aurorae craned his head slightly to look at the sunrise in the illusion.

Nemo grabbed his wrist in silence, trying to deliver more magic, but found that Aurorae’s magic circuit had begun to collapse. His heartbeat became weaker, and he could no longer absorb any more mana.

“Now let me answer your question. The last time I left here, I just wanted to tell you… For so many years, I have wanted to tell you. If it’s you now, you should be able to understand…”

The melancholy that had always been entangled between the demon slayer’s eyes finally melted. At the last moment, Aurorae didn’t look at Nemo. He continued to stare at the false sunrise, breathing a sigh of relief…

“…Thank you for giving me the opportunity to see the world.”

There was no dissatisfaction, regret, disenchantment, or attachment. There was only simple gratitude.

Simple and persistent.

“My pleasure,” Nemo replied softly, giving the other party a hug again.

But he was still a few seconds late, and only fine ashes were scattered in the air in front of him. The wandering undead was finally able to rest, and the body that had already reached its limit turned directly into dust.

He always failed to make a proper farewell.

The streets and the pedestrians disappeared, and only the faint light of dawn still fell on the bottom of the Abyss. This time it illuminated not a peaceful and quiet human town, but a pile of corpses that existed in reality not far away.

Nemo stood up and walked to the corpse of the lantern blind bug that had already lost its life. He stretched out his hand and carefully stroked the demon’s cold body.

“Sweet dreams, Aurorae.”

A red flame ignited, illuminating the blind bug’s unclosed white round eyes as the corpse began to gradually turn into dust.

He didn’t want him to see the battle that was upcoming.

In the past few thousand years, Nemo hadn’t revealed too much about his body to Aurorae. Aurorae may not know, but he knew very well in his own heart. Facing a “Ulysses” whose combined strength was all the Demon Kings in history, that only had its fighting instinct; he had no chance of winning.

Nemo raised his eyes and looked at Ulysses, who was standing quietly not far away. As Aurorae’s body burned out, it began to become murderous and restless again.

Whether it was the Demon King, who always followed the best choice, or Nemo Light from Roadside Town, perhaps he would no longer make meaningless resistance. He had to work hard and struggle, right?

Nemo stretched out a hand, and the dark shadow condensed into a piece of rope in his palm. He skillfully twisted the rope and tied his scattered black hair behind his head into a short ponytail.

[Your behavior is meaningless. You have no chance of winning.] A voice repeated in his heart, familiar and cold.

[I know.] He answered himself calmly.

[You know what will be waiting for you. Jesse Dylan is still on the surface, and Oliver Ramon may already know the truth.]

[I know.]

[He’s a human after all. Even if he doesn’t take the initiative to attack you now, he will do it one day. This body will be destroyed and returned to its original body, sifting out those useless feelings, and you’ll continue with your original plan. And he promised Nemo Light that he would give priority to maintaining peace on the surface.]

[I know.]

[If you don’t do it sooner, he will definitely kill you. Now you can calculate all the possibilities, and you know this very well. What you are doing now will only give him more time to become stronger.]

Nemo stopped and took a few deep breaths. The extremely destructive aura exploded violently, covering the bottom of the Abyss with flying sand and rocks. He cracked his neck and stared intently at the huge and twisted monster not far away—the very form he had taken more than twenty years ago.

[I have learned two very important pieces of information on the surface—death throes are very effective.]

He calmly responded to the “instinct” that was clamoring in his heart.

[And there is no such thing as “destiny” in this world.]

Nemo stepped on the ground. The fine sand dissipated, and the ground suddenly sank into a huge crater full of cracks. The dark shadow opened like fangs around him and bit straight at his target…

“Come, Ulysses.”

The dark shadow collided with the sharp limbs, and a series of sharp explosions exploded in the cold air.

“Until one of us falls.”

---

Kinky Thoughts:

Aurorae!!! Too tragic! I bawled so badly in this chapter.

---

<<< || Table of Contents || >>>

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

---

Chapter 242: Underground Sunrise

It was a wonderful feeling.

The consciousness seemed to be floating in the air, and many disordered memory fragments swirled around like a tornado. In contrast, there was a strange calmness in the center of the consciousness.

Ironically, his self should have disappeared quickly in the methodical sea of memory, like broken ice melted into boiling water, and it was because Flint Lopez took the Demon King’s head at Ulysses’ behest, directly causing the Demon King’s memory to remain chaotic, allowing him to barely maintain his rationality.

Nemo thought bitterly that this was just a simple return of memory. If this body was destroyed, the consciousness would return to its original body. Under the pressure of removing emotions, he wouldn’t even have the chance to struggle.

Nemo clung to his memories and struggled like a drowning man. He couldn’t step on the ground with his feet, and he threw his arms hopelessly, but he was able to occasionally poke out of the water in this boundless torture and get a mouthful of precious air.

The resistance continued.

Nemo roughly repelled the memories that kept surging in his mind, desperately denying them. These memories didn’t belong to him. Nemo kept thinking to himself that he was the Nemo Light from Roadside Town.

He had a short life and a beloved lover.

Just like a drowning man who couldn’t struggle for eternity under physical limitations, “Nemo Light” couldn’t resist like this forever. Before he was almost torn apart by anxiety and despair, he caught such a flicker of a shimmering clue.

It was like finding a weak point in an iron wall that was slowly moving in…

[Go to the surface?] Aurorae in his memory responded curiously.

[A theory, I remember mentioning it to you. I didn’t name it. The intelligent race on the surface calls it Woodruff’s Theorem. Once a two-way connection across space is established, it can only die out naturally in accordance with the law. The connection itself cannot be broken.]

[I don’t understand.]

[To put it simply, if there is no error in my calculation… You can separate a little flesh and attach your consciousness to it. Then, when the surface creatures summon demons, you can attach yourself to a subordinate or intermediate demon. Next, you need to use this flesh to reach a contract with the surface life so they can “fix” you. Your body is here while your flesh is at the other end. Such a state will be very stable.]

At that time, he continued very coldly.

[I tried it with my own flesh, but the subordinate demons were completely unable to withstand the power of my flesh. Next, I will continue to try and see if I can get different results by using intermediate demons. The Corewen Flat Snake is a good test subject. Answer me now, Aurorae. Are you going?]

[Why me? You have created a lot of wanderers without even thinking about it.]

[It’s safe to experiment like this.]

[It’s not a matter of safety. Why me?]

At that time, Nemo couldn’t understand the answer the other party was chasing, so he could only explain patiently.

[On the one hand, you have intelligence, and you can get more information.]

After receiving his calm thoughts, the young blind bug, who couldn’t move much, curled up its body and transmitted a hint of grievance and discontent.

[…On the other hand, you can experience things you have never been able to do before. For example, vision, the ability to freely move, and so on. The more information you can understand, the easier our communication will be.]

The traces of grievances and dissatisfaction disappeared suddenly.

[Okay.] The mood of the blind bug instantly lifted. [But… But I may not be back for a long time. You…]

[When you grow up, your body can instinctively eat miasma, and I will bring food regularly.]

[No, I mean, if I’m not here, it’s just you…]

[What’s the problem?]

[…Nothing, father.]

[I am not your father, but you may address me as you please.]

How many years have passed since then?

Aurorae came back, and came back quickly, perhaps too quickly for a superior demon.

The demon excitedly recounted everything he saw on the surface. The pleasant, irritating, endearing, detestable, and nostalgic.

The Demon King couldn’t understand much. He listened calmly beside the ever-larger lantern blind bug trying hard to extract useful information from it. In about a hundred years, when the other party shed its flesh for the fifth time and returned to the body at the bottom of the Abyss, Nemo objected.

[The experiment ended a long time ago, Aurorae.] Nemo said, quite sensibly. [At present, you frequently abandon your flesh to go to the surface then return to your body. Even if I could treat you, the loss of flesh injected with power will still make you weak. From the results, the information you gave me the last two times was quite repetitive… You can choose to stay on the surface or in the Abyss for a long time, and you don’t need to continue this meaningless behavior.]

[Are you worried about me?]

[This is not a “worry” but a reasonable suggestion.]

[I like to go back… If you really think this behavior is meaningless, I won’t tell you about it anymore. Now I’m going to the surface, father. Please send my flesh to the designated demon.]

……

[Father, don’t you hate the surface? In the last expedition, their methods were really…]

[Pain is something that doesn’t matter. It only helps me judge the degree of injury. Compared to pain, the weakness of the other party bores me. There haven’t been any new breakthroughs on the surface recently, and it’s disappointing to see the same few tactics repeatedly.]

[I understand.]

……

[Father, do you have any wishes?]

[Wishes? I have none. If I have to say it, I want to go to the surface, but so far, I haven’t found an effective way. The current expeditions are too frequent, and I don’t have much time to concentrate on thinking. I hope that the army sent from the surface will be stronger next time.]

[You mean, powerful surface creatures can make you sleep longer?]

[Theoretically, yes. The more powerful the surface creatures are, the higher the value of intelligence and knowledge they bring. I need more time to analyze before I can condense a new body.]

[I understand.]

……

[Father, I…]

[What’s the matter?]

[Nothing.]

……

The current Nemo could understand what Aurorae didn’t say.

Thousands of years had passed, and the lantern blind bug had gradually aged. Aurorae was moving towards the end of his life, and the unnecessary consumption of flesh had accelerated the process. Aurorae lived on the surface and could move freely and see everything. Then he personally destroyed his flesh on the surface, bringing his consciousness back to the Abyss to give information to “him” that he had collected on the surface.

The cycle kept repeating.

Again and again. Relayed the information then again and again. As the power of the blind bug waned, the interval between Aurorae’s round trip became longer, and at the same time, he became more silent.

Finally, one day, the demon he fed never came back.

The Demon King wasn’t surprised. In his opinion, even if Aurorae was gone forever the first time, it was fully understandable.

The bottom of the Abyss was dark and barren and wasn’t suitable for beings with emotions to live there for a long time.

With the combat and magic theories that Aurorae had learned from him, he wouldn’t have too many opponents on the surface. Aurorae could continue to live on with his surface flesh until the body at the bottom of the Abyss died.

According to normal logic, that demon should’ve done this a long time ago.

The Demon King still kept feeding Aurorae’s aging body regularly. Over the past few thousand years, this had almost become habitual. Occasionally, just occasionally, an idea of no value would pop up…

How is the lantern blind bug that I raised now?

Knowing that the other party would not provide any more information, why should he continue this feeding behavior?

No, he knew. The current Nemo knew very well.

Born alone in the void, the concepts of “family” and “companions” never existed in his life. Sensibility wasn’t conducive to his survival, so the erosion of “feelings” began a long time ago, and thus he couldn’t understand it. Feelings were not simply “yes” or “no”, they were only “produce” and “disappear”.

Yes, this was what he was once worried about. Nemo even wanted to laugh a little. If one must strictly abide by their instincts to survive, then thinking itself is meaningless, and he should have known this a long time ago.

Nemo didn’t hesitate for too long. He spread out his limbs in his consciousness, relaxed his spirit, and completely gave up resistance.

There was no denial, no panic.

These were his memories, and he now had a name. A human named him with blessings, hoping that he would live. Even if the fragments of memory that came up were filled with chaos, killing, and blood…

‘It wasn’t that he lost himself,’ Nemo thought coldly, ‘he just hadn’t changed since the very beginning.’ Now he could understand that he could twist that little vein of emotion out of the darkness.

And then dominate it.

The tornado of memories stood still.

First there were the memories related to Aurorae, then Ulysses, the previous generation, and the ones after that—the memories no longer collided with his sanity in a disordered manner. Under the suppression of reason, they returned to their position obediently, like leaves of a tree, resting on the thin branches of emotion.

‘It was nothing more than pain,’ Nemo thought to himself, letting the blood and the pain of countless “deaths” in his memory pass through his mind.

These were all his things, whether they were in the past or present. He wasn’t their enemy. He was their master. If he was afraid of himself, then nothing could begin.

The pain continued, but the fear stopped.

It was hard for Nemo to tell exactly how he felt at the moment. It felt refreshing, like a groggy mind that instantly cleared up. Joy and sorrow had become thin. He had seen the lonely dark void and also the ripples of flowers. He had seen the burning sun, and also the transitional color of human eyes.

A beautiful, emerald green.

The memories were completely sorted out. A small crack appeared in the heavy darkness, and as the emotions of the past and present converged, the crack became wider.

He won.

The “19^th generation” Demon King had now truly awakened.

Even if this short-lived “self” would pass away after being executed by Ulysses. That was the next problem he needed to worry about. Now he could be regarded as having successfully taken the first step—not being overwhelmed by the huge memories and falling into madness.

Nemo moved his fingers and found that he had finally regained some control of his body.

Then he opened his eyes. Although in the dark underground, this behavior didn’t have any actual effect.

Next, he smelled blood.

“Aurorae,” Nemo spoke, moving away from the other party’s cold finger against his forehead. Then he sat up. “Long time to see.”

“Light.” The other party’s voice didn’t sound stable and was mixed with gasped breathing. “I have something to say. Please listen to me. As for after that, it doesn’t matter if you kill me.”

Nemo raised his hand in silence, and the healing spell climbed onto Aurorae’s broken body. Unfortunately, Aurorae’s aura was already too weak, and he could only delay his impending death. The current demon slayer was too weak that even the human flesh could no longer be collected for his own use.

Startled by Nemo Light’s treatment, Aurorae looked at the other person’s silver eyes that were gleaming in the darkness and frowned.

But he knew that he didn’t have much time left, and he didn’t want to spend too much time on Mr. Light’s motives. Aurorae took a deep breath and exhaled words with all his strength.

“If you can return to the surface, be sure to tell those people that this generation the Demon King is very dangerous. I think you should be able to feel the power of this ‘Ulysses’. If you want to go on an expedition, please be sure to do it after a hundred years…”

Even if he was about to die, he may have been able to buy a little more time.

“I don’t really care if you’re willing to be loyal to the Abyss, Light. There is only one thing… Just watching you, you care about that boy from Lopez from the bottom of your heart. Even for him…”

Nemo Light was silent.

“I saved you from Ulysses. When I die, you’d better hide here for a while and try to suppress your aura. Then escape to the surface. I can tell you the way…”

“I can’t leave.” Light finally opened his mouth. His tone was a bit eerily familiar.

Aurorae subconsciously frowned.

“I can’t leave now,” Light repeated again.

The demon slayer let out a long sigh. He withdrew the power of his arm and let it fall on the cold sand with a soft noise.

“…Then that’s it,” Aurorae said wearily. “At least I tried. Unfortunately, we’ll all die here… Light, if you want to pursue your grievances with the reconnaissance team, you can do it now.”

Nemo Light stretched out his hand, and there was a certain brilliance in that pale hand. Aurorae narrowed his orange-red eyes and looked calmly at it.

But it didn’t bring pain and death.

It just touched the top of his head, and the next second, the bottom of the dark Abyss suddenly lit up as bright as day.

Aurorae was in a trance.

The top-level illusion instantly lifted up. Just as the world had truly changed, the two of them were now on an ordinary street on the surface.

Aurorae— Or rather, Talbott Vance recognized this place. This was Noer, a border city where the Dawn Tavern was located and the street where the Mercenary Guild branch was.

The sun hadn’t risen yet, and there were still sparse morning stars in the sky. Pedestrians walked in groups of three to five, traversing the streets in the early hours of the morning. The crisp birdsong came from afar, the wooden wheels from vendors’ carts creaked on the stone road, and the air was mixed with cooking smoke and the peculiar smell of dust in the early morning.

He was supposed to be sitting with his back to the demon’s corpse, but instead he was on the side of the street, on the steps of a bakery that hadn’t opened yet. Even the dust on his fingers was unmistakably real. Nemo Light was half kneeling across from him; his right hand was still resting on top of his head, and his gaze looked solemn.

“…What are you doing?” Aurorae coughed. Things were too strange. Even Telaranea couldn’t make such a perfect illusion. “Light, take your hand away—”

“What did you want to tell me last time?”

“What last time?”

“The last time you left the Abyss and didn’t come back.” Nemo Light’s black hair was scattered on his cheek; his robe was in tatters, looking very wretched. The slightly cloudy early morning light reflected the delicate features that belonged to humans, which were no different from the ones in his memories.

But his temperament was subtly different. Even if they didn’t intersect much, he could detect that something was wrong.

There was a certain sense of oppression of something superior. Aurorae subconsciously shrank back, and then realized how terribly familiar this fear was.

“You…”

“I told you clearly that even if I can heal you, the loss of flesh injected with power will still make you weak. Even if it’s me now, I have no way to save you, Aurorae. You shouldn’t have come back for a long time.”

The pale young man sighed, let go of his aura completely, and then immediately retracted it.

“Now you should be able to recognize me. It’s just for an instant, since right now you can’t withstand too much magic pressure.”

“Father…”

Aurorae moved his lips. He raised his head slightly, looking at the scene on the surface in front of him. His eyes were sour, and something warm slid down from the corner.

How comical.

Together with Telaranea, they had deduced countless times that the underground “Ulysses” was the newly emerged Demon King, but the aura that Nemo Light was giving off at this moment wasn’t fake. A completely different one from before, full of wildness and dominance.

Memories could be copied, and feelings could be falsified, but Aurorae would never mistake the Demon King’s aura.

That’s right. Light’s memory loss not long ago turned out to be this. It seemed that Flint Lopez’s taking the Demon King’s head to the surface wasn’t necessarily out of a desire for glory.

Have you finally found a way to get to the surface, father?

And he didn’t know. Of course he didn’t know. Hundreds of years ago, before the last expedition took place, he abandoned the Demon King.

Just as his kind had abandoned him, without prior notice, decisively and resolutely they left him in the cold and lonely darkness.

In fact, just before ascending to the surface this time, Aurorae believed he would return when the time was right, as he always had done.

But he was too old.

After successfully landing on the surface this time, Aurorae began to waver. If he returned to the Abyss, did he still have the strength to leave there? The deathbed of a superior demon could last for up to a hundred years. He would lose his vision and ability to move, and he would slowly await his death in the darkness.

He began to fear. The brighter the sun, the more he feared the death in the dark.

He wasn’t a “demon slayer”. Aurorae trembled and clenched his fist. He was nothing more than a coward, a traitor. Perhaps the ever-cold Demon King wouldn’t care about his existence, but Aurorae couldn’t really use this as an excuse.

His father, who had no compassion, gave him such a warm name—after thousands of years of living together, he knew him very well. The Demon King did possess extremely faint emotions; a heart that was elusive but was present.

[Everyone doesn’t like being left behind.]

Having been abandoned himself, he should deeply understand this pain, and now he had done exactly the same thing—because of fear, he had left his loved one behind.

Aurorae couldn’t forgive himself.

He obviously wanted to see the Demon King again, instead of staying on the surface and doing something to make amends, so that he wouldn’t be overwhelmed by the guilt…

He did his best to teach Flint Lopez so that Lopez could grow up into the strongest person on the surface, and then naturally participated in the expedition. According to what his father once told him, wouldn’t this allow him to sleep longer and not be disturbed frequently?

He taught those fools who tried to turn the surface into scorched earth so that the forest remained green, and the river flowed as usual. If one day his father could come to the surface, he could preserve the beautiful scenery he had seen intact for his father… Does his father still remember his long-winded and unstructured descriptions?

But these were just his wishful atonement, self-imposed fantasies.

After all, all he needed was time to talk, but he no longer had the time to talk to the Demon King. Even if it couldn’t be understood, he should have been able to convey it to the other party solemnly…

However, he always thought that next time, the Demon King might be able to understand. Next time, next time, next time, until he was defeated by fear and completely lost the opportunity to speak out.

“…Father.” Aurorae grabbed Nemo’s wrist as tears finally gushed out.

It could be considered a miracle that such a cowardly person had a chance again.

“I’m not your father.” This time, Light showed a half-embarrassed and half-sad smile, “…but you may address me as you please.”

---

The author has something to say:

I recovered a lot of flags, and I am satisfied. _(:з”∠)_

Yes, Aurorae isn’t a villain! He is just… a small domestic animal (……

The demon slayer protected the surface, not because he loved the surface.

---

Kinky Thoughts:

Why are all the side characters’ stories so good and emotional. It always makes me tear up reading it. Poor Aurorae! You’re just a little bun that needs love!

We also know why the Demon King saved Bagelmaurus in the first place. Poor Bagelmaurus. I wonder how it will react when it finds out it was nothing more than an experiment attempted by the Demon King to reach the surface.

---

<<< || Table of Contents || >>>

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

---

Chapter 241: The Father who Gave Him his Name

Because of Nemo Light’s overpowering intervention, the destruction array was activated in advance. Although the possible time difference was calculated, Aurorae had activated the teleportation prop as soon as possible, but he didn’t think that Light wouldn’t leave any way back for himself.

A demon who was willing to face destruction for the sake of humans.

Before Aurorae had time to escape, the powerful destructive aura instantly pushed on the shield he had erected and blasted him directly to the bottom of the Abyss.

The Demon Slayer, who was had overdrawn the power of his flesh, had abandoned the unfinished teleportation spell and concentrated all his power on defense. The rapid fall and landing only caused him to lose his mind for a few seconds.

But he wasn’t safe.

Immediately, what followed was the devastating effect of overdrawing his power. There was little that was left of the demon flesh that Telaranea supplied him. The blood surging in his veins seemed to turn into fine needles, causing intense pain. His own power was collapsing at a terrible speed, exacerbated by the dense dead air at the bottom of the Abyss.

Telaranea was waiting for him near the entrance of the Abyss, but he was destined to break his promise. Only here, they couldn’t make contact, and he had completely lost the power to escape.

Aurorae didn’t feel resentment or anger.

He threw the teleportation prop in his hand that had already been deformed and was useless into the cold sand. His tattered armor was cracked into several pieces, and most of the blood-stained waiter’s uniform was exposed.

Aurorae took a deep breath, picked up the remnants of the great sword, and stood up shakily.

He was going to die here. This fact was now unmistakable.

No, rather, it should be said that he was going to die here again.

Hundreds of years ago, he decided that he would never let his consciousness return to his body, and a few years ago, the unconscious body finally stopped breathing. From that moment on, he had actually “died”, and it could even be called dead.

Telaranea had been extending his life with its own flesh, allowing him to barely retain his last consciousness. He didn’t know whether the other party did it out of years of friendship, or simply wanted to observe him as a case, but nevertheless, Aurorae was still grateful.

“Aurorae”, who had been guarding the surface for thousands of years, were now just a little spark in the ashes.

His power continued to deplete, and the sense of weakness was getting stronger. Aurorae wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and smiled bitterly at the darkness in front of him.

It’s over, father.

But he seemed destined to be unable to get his peace. Not far away, a familiar aura was surging.

Nemo Light didn’t erect any defense spells, but for some reason he wasn’t swallowed up by the destruction array. The aura of that foolish demon wasn’t far away, together with his father, who had lost his sentience.

Although Light was also a creature of the Demon King, it seemed that he had not undertaken any missions. The Demon King, who was left with only instinct, raised one of its forelimbs and looked like he was about to completely destroy Light—

Aurorae didn’t hesitate for long.

He gathered his last strength in his lower limbs, and before the Demon King could react, he abruptly took Light out of the Demon King’s attack range. He dragged the unconscious Nemo Light in the direction of his body.

The Demon King chased after them without anger, vigilance, or any other emotions, but only pure intent to kill. There was no vitality in its action. It was more like a puppet dominated by the simplest desires.

His father was still not awake.

Would the Demon King keep hunting them down like this regardless? Aurorae subconsciously rushed towards his own body. Blood gushed out from his wounds, and his muscles seemed to crack into pieces, but he ran with the last of his strength.

He was about to die, but since Light could leave the Abyss, maybe he could still return to the surface. Even if the hatred between them couldn’t be resolved, Nemo Light loved that human so deeply and befriended human authority that he should be able to spread the message.

To tell them with personal experience that this time the Demon King was very dangerous. Tell them not to go on another expedition for hundreds of years. Tell them… Even if Light kills him to vent his anger, it wouldn’t matter. At least from Light’s ability and previous performance, he wasn’t as stupid as that group of humans to irritate the Demon King.

Aurorae weakly laughed.

Hopefully, Light’s great power and sacrificial deed would increase the persuasiveness, arouse the vigilance of those greedy people, and make the surface treat the changes at the bottom of the Abyss more carefully.

…So as to buy his father more time to recuperate.

Aurorae didn’t know when the Demon King would be able to regain his memory, but one more second would give him one more point of hope.

On the one hand, he didn’t know whether the Demon King, who had lost its sanity after being killed, could possibly return to normal again. On the other hand, the current Demon King was too dangerous for both the surface and the Abyss, so he must try to make the other side suffer less useless stimulation.

In this way, at least before death, he could still provide a trace of possibility that was better than nothing, and he could atone for a little bit of his sin.

The premise, though, was that right now they could escape.

With the rapid loss of strength, the demon slayer could hardly move on. The unconscious Nemo Light’s body became heavier, and Aurorae finally fell to his knees in the cold, fine sand, gasping for breath.

Despite the darkness in front of him, he could still hear blood dripping on the sand.

His body was just ahead.

This is the end, Aurorae thought to himself. He let Light lie on his back in the sand while he crawled two steps to lean on the corpse of a demon behind him. He struggled to move his body, he faced the direction that the Demon King was chasing him, and his heart became sour.

This was a gamble with very low odds. A game. Even if the Demon King was conscious, he didn’t show much care about him, not to mention the state it was in now…

The rhythm of the limbs rubbing against the sand was slowing down.

The speed of the Demon King’s advance became slower, and it finally stopped a hundred meters away.

The unconscious monster stood quietly for a moment beside the body of Aurorae and then slowly left. Aurorae, who was sitting with his back to the corpse, raised his head slightly as tears streamed across the blood on his face.

He made the right bet, but it made him even more miserable.

…Even at this point, did his father still remember his “existence”?

“Nemo Light,” Aurorae squeezed a sentence from between his teeth. He let go of the sword he was holding in his left hand and held down his bleeding wound. His long gray hair was scattered on his shoulders. “You’d better wake up quickly…”

He stretched out his blood-stained right hand, pressed Nemo’s brow, and struggled to input what strength he had left.

Nemo didn’t take it well.

His consciousness seemed to be cut into several pieces, washed and dissolved by countless pieces of important or unimportant information. The state of his mind was closer to half-asleep than half-awake, but the “self” was becoming more blurred.

Those memories were too cold and long.

Boring and complicated, mixed with pain, near-death feelings, and the tears of others. It was like he was sinking in a swamp and was slowly and irreversibly fading away. Those terrible memories couldn’t stop hitting his consciousness, and Nemo frantically shielded the memories that belonged only to him, trying to separate the memories with sunlight from the infinite darkness.

But he didn’t know how to resist, and the swarming consciousness made him wonder where to start. He repeated Oliver’s name repeatedly in his mind, but while one second his lover’s name could bring him sweet brilliance, the next second he felt a numbness that gave him chills.

In the end, there was only a piece of suffocating despair.

Consciousness was gradually piecing together in front of Nemo—He was like an idiot who wanted to hinder the tsunami with his flesh. In the end, he was still too optimistic, thinking that he could preserve his consciousness. Even if he turned into a monster, there was still a chance to turn things around.

The Demon King didn’t need useless information.

Regardless of the details of the merciless plan, he once even considered the current situation. The consciousness that was separated from the surface and lost its memory could easily be disturbed by other races, bringing unnecessary feelings and positions.

Hatred and love, affection, and friendship were built on falsehood.

The Demon King never needed those things. He just wanted a curious glimpse so as to deduce the full state of the surface. The sun, the smell of the air, the level of development of many civilizations… Even the fact that he wanted to be a librarian before may not be entirely out of his own will.

“Nemo Light” was just a spy on the surface of the darkness. The last intelligence collection before the destruction.

According to the Demon King’s plan, Nemo Light shouldn’t even awaken. He should have spent his life as an ordinary human being, or died from war, disease, or at the hands of his fellow humans. After his uneventful death, the flesh would be destroyed, and the consciousness would return to the body.

Then bring a real calamity to the surface.

Not to mention that the consciousness and feelings of mortals were completely unworthy to be mentioned under the impact of such huge memories, Nemo was now clear about the characteristics of his own body. Once the consciousness really returned to the body, he would instinctively sift through these “worthless” small feelings. It was like using a strainer to sift out the impurities in muddy water.

It was unstoppable, like the instinct of a heartbeat.

In a more unexpected situation, if he encountered such a thing, he would restore some of the characteristics of a demon. In order to prevent himself from harming his body without his knowledge, he even made a backup plan—

The Demon King separated another piece of flesh and, based on all the information collected so far, designed the strongest combat form that life in this world could achieve.

A fully evolved second “Ulysses”.

To avoid attracting unnecessary attention, this fighting machine without self-awareness at first only slept in the corner of the Abyss. If Nemo Light on the surface was unfortunately awakened but had the chance to recover some power, the “strongest life form” at the bottom of the Abyss would be activated at the same time and start moving again.

And without reservation, kill all living things in front of it.

After all, “Nemo Light” was born to blend into the surface and was very different from “Ulysses” who was born to fight from the beginning. So even in the worst case, “Nemo Light” regained a lot of power and was influence or manipulated by the surface and tried to attack the Abyss, Ulysses, who had prepared things in advance would also destroy him and forced his consciousness back into his body.

Then the surface would still be destroyed.

In other words, even if he could withstand the impact of these huge memories at this moment, he could barely preserve what was “him”. What awaited would also be the fate of being unable to escape from the bottom of the Abyss, as well as the cruel battle against Ulysses with a zero chance of winning.

Nemo knew this very well, not to mention that Ollie’s strength hadn’t yet developed, and Jesse Dylan couldn’t interfere with the fate he faced. Whether staying, giving up, or moving forward, there was nothing but despair waiting for him.

He protected his last reason blankly, but his heart was barren. Nemo couldn’t even be surprised by the appearance of his own body, and the pain completely tore him apart. If there were feelings, even if he once had little “meaningless” feelings, perhaps…

At this moment, a familiar force poured in from his forehead. The relevant memories were like schools of fish looking for bait, gradually gathered in one place.

He remembered the scene when he first saw this aura.

The lantern blind bugs were one of the superior demons that lived at the bottom of the Abyss and liked to move in groups, slowly wandering around the bottom. The Demon King had never been interested in that kind of stupid plant-like life.

But on that day, thousands of years ago, they left behind a newborn member of the pack.

At that time, he leaned forward simply because he happened to be nearby and casually checked the condition—a cub born with incomplete legs and feet and unable to move. It curled up in place, motionless.

But unlike its species, it exuded helplessness and fear.

At the time, he thought it was quite interesting. A cub that paid a physical price and was mutated into something with extraordinary wisdom. It was natural that the lantern blind bugs would be wary of this kind of thing and abandon it as they couldn’t understand it. They didn’t equate it with their own kind.

Without vision, unable to move, left with only hearing and touch, it hadn’t even learned how to eat. Abandoned by its own kind in this way, it would soon die in panic and confusion.

At that time, he hesitated briefly, and Nemo remembered it very clearly. He considered for a while whether to use it as food or continue to observe this special case. In the end, out of some vague emotion, he chose the latter.

He just stayed next to it, letting the lantern blind bug cub scream instinctively in horror. It couldn’t end its own life—When it was so scared that it didn’t have the strength to be afraid, Nemo casually dragged the corpse of a superior demon over, decomposed it into miasma, and watched the cub eat jerkily.

Surface creatures occasionally engage in the act of raising other species. He thought to himself that he might be able to try it to see if this behavior could bring beneficial value.

After feeding regularly for a period of time, when the cub finally got used to fear, his thoughts were no longer chaotic, and Nemo began to exchange ideas with the lantern blind bug.

After all, he had just taken in a floating cocoon whose world was entirely wrapped. The boundary between the Abyss and the surface had already been designated. Besides, he had infinite time. In order to prepare for the future, he needed to first study the method of sending his consciousness to the surface without destroying the boundary between the surface and the Abyss.

In the darkness, he had an object that could communicate, which really made things a little more efficient.

But that little thing wasn’t the same as him.

It began to think about a lot of inexplicable things in silence, and Nemo couldn’t understand its thoughts. According to various manifestations, perhaps it also had “feelings” common to those small lives.

[Most feelings are harmful or unhelpful.]

Nemo once explained it to it like this.

[You have seen those expeditionary forces. No matter what race they are, they will grieve when their companions die. And that grief made the ensuing attack chaotic… Obviously they came here to plunder, and were prepared to die beforehand, so why would they grieve?]

[Maybe people don’t like being left behind.] It answered like this.

Nemo at the time, couldn’t understand.

[I want a name.]

After another expedition, Nemo took his reconstituted body and dragged food to the lantern blind bug he was casually raising. The immovable creature made a request for the first time.

Nemo was a little surprised. It was only the two of them that were communicating underground, so this request made no sense, but it didn’t cost much, and he had no firm reason to refuse.

He stared at the white star-like eyes of the lantern blind bug without the slightest vision.

[If you care about the expedition,] he thought for a moment, [The sword that killed me before looks good in color. I don’t know how to express it accurately, but I hope to see it again.]

[The surface race calls it “The Holy Sword, Breaking Dawn” and its name comes from the brilliance of the sunrise. I haven’t seen the sunrise before. If it looks like that, then it doesn’t hurt to take a look. You asked me a question that I can’t understand. Maybe I can give you a name that you won’t understand.]

[“Dawn”, Aurorae. Speaking of which, Aurorae, do you want to go to the surface to take a look?]

That was the beginning of everything.

---

The author has something to say:

Nemo: Pick up a small animal and raise it.

Nemo: This is my little animal!

Aurorae: Father—!

Nemo: …

---

<<< || Table of Contents || >>>

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

---

Chapter 240: A Fool’s Love

When did it start?

When he was still in Roadside Town, Oliver occasionally thought about his future. He would inherit the small inn, form a family with a girl in town, or continue to live alone and peacefully.

He was destined to age and die in that familiar land.

He’d spend the rest of his life listening to other people’s legends to pass the time, running a business, calculating the inn’s income and expenses, and going to larger cities with friends and family to explore. As long as there wasn’t war on the border, the time waiting in front of him was ordinary and smooth.

Oliver had genuinely thought that it had been the biggest accident of his life to be attracted to Nemo Light, who was also a male.

It wasn’t just because the other side had an excellent appearance. Oliver liked the feeling of getting along with Nemo very much. He liked the curves of his lips when he smiled, the unabashed honesty in his tone; and the sporadic details of his gentleness.

And that little bit of danger that made people’s hearts flutter.

Oliver had encountered countless adventurers before. Although he wasn’t too old, he thought he had seen the dark side of many people in a place where adventurers gathered in Roadside Town. Nemo Light had an inexplicable sense of purity compared to him. If it hadn’t been for his embarrassment and fear when he was younger, he wouldn’t have avoided him deliberately and maybe they would’ve become friends.

After all, they met because of a disaster.

[You didn’t leave me at the beginning, and I definitely won’t leave you either.] Just a few months ago, Nemo promised him this in the Border Forest.

After that, as a mortal, he had caught a tiny miracle—the person he was most attracted to also had a similarly strong affection for his ordinary self.

Oliver didn’t think the poems describing love were all that accurate, and perhaps everyone’s love was different. In the past, he didn’t taste the sweetness of honey in his mouth, nor did he feel his heart was filled with fluffy feathers. Just like at this moment, there was no sharp pain in his chest as if a blade was agitating it, nor was there any heartbreaking despair.

It wasn’t anything that intense.

It was just like losing part of one’s own limbs. The world had become empty and strange, and the ordinary scenery of the past seemed unbearable at this time. He was still used to subconsciously chasing a figure who wasn’t there with his gaze, and he still remembered the touch and temperature of the palm of the other person’s hand.

He clearly remembered.

Memories came up little by little, and those peaceful times faded slightly, becoming cold because of the terrible possibility of “this is the last time”.

This wasn’t the first time they had separated, but it was indeed the first time he realized that “Nemo might never come back”.

What they had wasn’t a storm, but more like a small cluster of quiet bonfires. Oliver had always put his feelings in the brightest corner of his heart. Even in the darkest and most desperate times, he could still look forward to a new day.

But now Nemo is gone, Oliver thought to himself.

It didn’t matter if he was a man. It didn’t matter if he was a demon warlock. It didn’t matter if they weren’t the same kind, or if he was a superior demon.

Even if he was the Demon King… As long as they were still looking at the same world, they could always find a way to move forward together.

Thinking about it this way, it seemed like a long time since he had felt this kind of fear that was cold; a chill that could burrow deep into his bones. If, just saying if, the underground behemoth slept quietly, the Demon King was still alive. His Nemo, however, had disappeared into that overwhelming memory and consciousness, like a drop of blood falling into a lake.

Unfortunately, it couldn’t dye that lake red.

Oliver scratched the palm of his hand, causing dark red blood to spill into the soil.

“That prophecy.” Oliver’s voice was dry. “You should know the details, Dylan. I am the one who is destined to end all of this, am I not? That means I’ll definitely see him again.”

He couldn’t accept such a hasty farewell.

“Of course I remember that prophecy. It was so interesting that it made me weak for a whole week and a half. That prophet was very lucky. It stands to reason that humans can’t afford that price—I wouldn’t have given him that level of power if I hadn’t seen that he was asking somewhat interesting questions that even I couldn’t intervene with my calculations.”

Jesse rubbed Adrian’s lips with his fingers, and the joking meaning in his tone faded.

“I should have told you my advice… But your current state is not very suitable for communication. So, next I will only tell you the facts, Lord Captain.”

“As far as I know, even for ‘Nemo Light’, who is only a piece of flesh, that level of destruction will not destroy him, but it’s undoubtedly fatal enough to trigger Mr. Light’s self-protection mechanism. Yes, you don’t need to use that expression. It’s just like what happened when you fought against Witherspoon for the first time—the two of you made a lot of noise then. Mr. Light connected the Abyss to the surface, making it difficult for me to ignore.”

“At the time, he didn’t seem as bad as the rumors. He saved my life.” It was the first time he was moved by Nemo, and Oliver remembered it very clearly.

“We’ll talk about that later. Listen, Lord Captain. My point is that if Mr. Light regains consciousness in the depths of the Abyss, the situation will be completely different—he will fall back to the bottom of the Abyss. In an optimistic situation, he will be bound again, in a pessimistic situation…” Jesse twisted the corner of his mouth and didn’t continue.

“I don’t understand. Nemo is not a complete demon. After he recovers, the law will not forcibly remove him…”

“Laws, laws, laws. Humans always like to set things that they can’t explain as rules. A complete superior can’t come to the surface? The ‘superior demon’ is defined by your own words. How can that be used as a condition for the operation of the Abyss?”

Oliver looked at the annoying “God” in front of him a little blankly.

“From beginning to end, all that matters is power.”

Jesse’s tone was flat.

“I agreed with the lord of the underground a long time ago that in order to prevent too many beasts from running into my flock, the power of the abyssal creatures above a certain threshold isn’t allowed to ascend to the surface. What you call the ‘law’ is nothing more than a fence on a ranch. Remember, it’s because the demons that couldn’t come up are so powerful that humans designated them as superiors… Over time, you get the cause and effect wrong.”

“Even if they sneak up to the surface, the superior demons can only exist in the form of a piece of flesh with incomplete power. Strictly speaking, this isn’t a violation of the rules, and the damage is still within control. As for our Mr. Light, he should have erased his cognition in some way, pretending to pass the cordon we jointly laid.”

Oliver suddenly realized something, and his face suddenly paled. And Jesse looked at him coldly, without a smile in his icy blue eyes.

“I believe you guessed it. If he wants to leave again by such means, he must find ways to abandon his cognition again, but it doesn’t matter. Mr. Ramon, he doesn’t need to come up again… You won’t like what I’m about to say next. Are you sure you want to listen to it?”

“Continue.” Blood kept gushing out along his fingers as his palm was gouged by his nails. It kept bleeding, but the pain that was igniting was slightly distant.

“Just as you call him the ‘Demon King’, we prefer to call his race the ‘Pillar of the World’. They are very famous for gathering the remains of their brethren to be born alone and die alone. They cultivate, analyze, adjust, and evolve according to the information obtained. After thoroughly exploring the possibilities of one sun, they unfold their bodies and fly to another sun. Guess what will happen on the surface in this process?”

Jesse sighed and shook his head, looking at Oliver again.

“…Continue.”

“Okay, okay. You really don’t give up… Do you know why they are so famous? You see, even if it’s me, at least I have a little likable emotion, but they are different. To put it bluntly, the Pillar of the World is the most indifferent creature I have ever seen. Their consciousness ascending to the surface only means one thing—”

“They have completely lost interest in analyzing the many civilizations that currently exist in their own bodies. It is the last sample record before destruction.”

Before the voice fell, a slight tremor from the depths of the earth swept across the soles of their boots.

Jesse was stunned for a moment. His expression changed intricately, and finally fixed on “regret”.

“The Demon King’s cognition is restored,” he said softly. “Answer me now, are you ready to ‘save the world’, Lord Hero? Or are you willing to do nothing and wait to be obliterated by the ’world’?”

Half a day ago, deep in the Abyss.

Nemo could perceive that he was falling quickly.

His body smashed through hard rocks, scorching magma, and thick ice. The pain wasn’t too strong, but the tearing and dizziness were more serious. It seemed to grab his limbs with countless invisible hands, intensely pulling him downwards.

His body had been corroded out of shape by the explosion of the dragon breath stones, and now it was rapidly recovering.

But Nemo couldn’t lift a finger.

He had no intention of paying attention to this.

Countless fragments of information poured frantically into his consciousness. No, it was better to say that his consciousness fell into a certain ocean of memory fragments. Nemo almost forgot his identity for a moment, and the excessive influx of information made him want to scream, but he didn’t even have the strength to open his mouth.

The pain was too intense, and for a few seconds, he almost wanted to die.

His body finally hit the bottom, and the excessive speed caused him to create a huge crater at the bottom of the Abyss, which Nemo could vaguely perceive. The cessation of the fall didn’t make his situation better. His eyelids were still amazingly heavy, and his body’s control didn’t return.

The mixed memories made his consciousness intermittent, and it was difficult to tell whether he felt memories or reality.

Nemo thought vaguely that this was the sequelae of actively interfering with cognition. His mind was full of too much unfamiliar knowledge, and he was like a baby trying to unlock it with different keys. The key was in his hand, and the keyhole was in front, but whether he could put it in or rotate it, it was all incomprehensible and only made his head ache.

But he had felt this, and he may be able to pull through. Despite the enormity of their memories, they rarely had clear emotions. He was more like a spectator who could empathize.

This was a good thing. In the torture of several explosions in his brain, Nemo desperately repeated to himself…

Hold on. As long as he survived, he had the possibility of seeing Oliver again.

He wanted to look at those eyes again.

Unfortunately, he completely lost control of his body. He couldn’t even grit his teeth. He could only endure a floating sense of powerlessness and protect what little sanity was there.

It was like protecting a dying candle with your bare hands in a torrential rain.

A strong and familiar sense of oppression was approaching. It was Ulysses.

He knew this. If it was his current self, he could barely understand it. The Demon King’s plan pierced his brain in pieces. As long as he…

Killing intent.

The unquestionable killing intent suddenly dropped, almost pressing Nemo’s body into the sand a few inches deeper.

No.

Nemo frantically turned this thought, and the little clue he caught horrified him. His consciousness was still floating, a miracle didn’t happen, and his body still didn’t obey orders. Not to mention opening his eyes, he couldn’t even shed tears.

Impossible.

He could hear the sound of scythe-like hook claws wrapped in spells, breaking through the air and coming straight at him.

Not now.

Then a little warm liquid splashed on his face, but no pain accompanied it.

He was moving, but not out of his own will. Something threw him away from Ulysses’ attack, then roughly pulled his arm and dragged him quickly in a certain direction.

The aura felt familiar.

But Nemo couldn’t hold on any longer. In the increasingly turbulent tide of memory, his consciousness gradually slid into darkness.

Before that, he could barely feel the long, smooth hair sweeping across his cheeks.

There were several cold and dense auras of death in front of him. From the intensity, it seemed that one of the bodies should be distinctly huge, while the others surrounded it, relatively small.

He recognized these auras, Nemo faintly thought. Those smaller corpses were the ones he had once dragged here personally, and he never forgot any details.

And the one in the middle was particularly huge…

That’s it.

…They were heading towards the remains of Aurorae’s body.

---

<<< || Table of Contents || >>>

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

---

Chapter 239: Mr. White

Oliver regained a little consciousness.

His entire body was depleted, and the feeling of being carried on someone’s back felt familiar. The memories of escaping in the Border Forest with Nemo were mixed with instinctive ecstasy, like hot water soaking in his thoughts. Oliver almost immediately forced his eyes open.

After seeing the dark red cloak and blond hair in front of him, the green eyes full of expectation quickly dimmed.

His head wasn’t completely awake yet, but sadness had already thrown a strong sourness into his eyes and the tip of his nose.

“Brother,” Oliver whispered.

“I’ll take you to find your companion.” Godwin didn’t look back. His tone was blunt. “You’d better sleep more.”

“I’m sorry, I lied to you in the first place.”

“About his strength? At present, it seems that Nemo Light has proven his position with his actions,” Godwin said dryly. “Although I have other conjectures, now… is not the right time.”

“What about Debby and the others?”

“Debby’s fine. I’ve asked her to contact Horizon to guard the reconnaissance team. Lord Karapan of the Mooney Sect is in a coma due to overextension, and the Preceptor Bishop doesn’t seem to be pursuing you for now.” Godwin continued to walk forward, silence for half a minute before speaking again. “…Now you don’t have to worry about that.”

“Thank you,” Oliver murmured.

Godwin wasn’t deceiving him. Bagelmaurus’ aura was indeed getting closer. At their current speed, they could rendezvous with the other team in less than half an hour. Although he couldn’t see anything on the surface, Oliver knew very well that Godwin himself was equally as weak—the commander of Horizon didn’t even have spare power to heal his bleeding wound.

“What are you going to do next…” Godwin asked before he could finish his sentence, and then he stopped in his tracks.

A terrifying force broke out from the direction of the other team, and the terrifying momentum and strong malice suddenly made Oliver’s hair stand upside down.

A long time ago, in Noer, the terror he felt there in Nemo was still a little hazy, but now his own strength had soared and the gap between the sky seemed even clearer.

Godwin, who was also a top powerhouse, couldn’t hold on. His knees softened, and he knelt to the ground.

Oliver took advantage of the situation and struggled down from his back, lying on his back on the slightly withered grass next to him.

“It’s surface magic. What’s going on. I’ve never seen this kind of—” His voice trembled uncontrollably, and Godwin’s gaze subconsciously swept across the face that resembled him.

But Oliver didn’t look too surprised. Godwin could see that it wasn’t the numbness after losing a loved one but the calmness that had already been clear.

Oliver Ramon had indeed become different. In his impression, this cousin of his who liked to misbehave had always smiled, even if it was a bitter smile. There was still a smile nonetheless between his eyebrows, but now, Mr. Ramon was lying there in silence, his eyes were still red, and there wasn’t much emotion on his face.

The soft eyebrows of the past were slightly stiff, as if they had never learned how to laugh since they were born.

“Go back, brother,” he said, staring at the blue sky above his head.

Trying to ignore the increasingly heavy unknown force, Godwin looked up at the sky—a clear, beautiful cornflower blue, without a trace of clouds.

“Thank you,” Oliver still looking at the sky without blinking. “But I’ll have to go over there myself next.”

“I still have a few teleportation spells here. You come with me. There’s something going on over there. The strength of this power… Neither you nor I can handle it now,” Godwin replied immediately.

“I can probably guess who it is.” Oliver finally retracted his gaze and sat up.

Godwin frowned.

“I don’t know what you think of my dad now, Godwin.” Oliver’s voice became serious, “But I can tell you unequivocally that if you insist he was ‘destroyed’ by that expedition… Rather, he was ‘destroyed’ by some intelligence from it.”

Godwin Lopez squatted down, his red cloak sliding across the grass. His brows were tightened tightly, starring at Oliver with those eyes that were like his own.

“And I’m about to get that information.” Oliver licked his dry and cracked lips.

“…Do you know what it is?!”

“Now I can probably guess.” Oliver looked at the blue sky again, his tone trembling with wonder.

“Your situation isn’t good, Ramon. I can’t—”

“Although we have completely different views on many things, I don’t want to see you go down that same path, brother. For example… I believe you feel the current sense of oppression. At least for now, please, don’t explore it.”

“Are you sure you will be safe?” Godwin quickly pointed out.

“I don’t know, but I’m different from you.” Oliver staggered to his feet.

“I have no faith, no great ideals, and there is not much to lose… You’re more suitable for this world than me, Godwin Lopez. I…”

“I’m a crazy monster, maybe crazier than you think. If all this comes to an end; if I still have a chance, I will tell you the truth one day. But not now. You still have your dreams, right? …You still have time to fall in love with someone.”

“Please, go back, brother.”

Godwin Lopez stood up and looked into the other’s red and swollen eyes.

“I don’t like you very much, Ramon.” The leader of Horizon sighed. “Remember, you lied to me before. If this is the second time, then there won’t be a third.”

Godwin simply ignited the teleportation parchment and disappeared into the air.

He didn’t say goodbye.

But another teleportation parchment fell leisurely from where Godwin disappeared and rested on the grass. Oliver picked it up and clenched it in his palm. Then he raised his head again and looked at the terrifying giant that covered the entire sky.

More than half an hour later, near the entrance of the Abyss.

Jesse Dylan silently observed the rise and fall of Adrian’s chest, and when the other party’s breathing stabilized, he just planned to lower his mouth—

“…That was you.”

Oliver walked a little wobbly, his voice hoarse and weak, but he spoke, sounding very sure of himself.

He stretched out his hand and pointed to the sky.

“Tsk.” Jesse snapped. “I forgot that you were nearby. I just let go of a little bit of strength, so it was natural I was seen… Oops, my mistake. Are you okay, captain? Maybe I can help you get rid of this unpleasant memory.”

The blond young man raised his head and did a once-over, scanning Oliver from head to toe with his eyes. “Well, it seems that you’re not very good.”

Oliver was also looking at Jesse Dylan and the situation around this “God”.

It looked terrible here.

Oliver tried to remove the power from his eyes, and the blue sky showed its original appearance again. The warm and brilliant sun once again brushed the tips of the grass but made the rest of the scene look more terrifying.

The blue dragon and the youth of the choir were sleeping on the fairly clean lawn, wrapped in countless tranquilizing spells. The fuller goat was chewing on grass on the edge of the battlefield, and the gray parrot, with half of its burnt feathers, was unconscious on its back.

The one-eyed dwarves gathered in one place, creaking and gnawing at the bloody bones with their beards covered in purple-black blood. There were still some fragments of clothing left on the bones.

The believers of the Mooney Sect staggered around, most of them clinging to their heads and stopping looking at the sky. The more intense ones even dug out their own eyeballs, some incontinent, and the air was mixed with the stench of blood.

Standing in the middle were a number of huge stones closely resembling the shapes of people, with living human eyeballs embedded on the top, facing the sky.

“Don’t ask now. I can probably guess your intention.” Jesse seemed to be aware of the surprise of his own leader, and he waved his hand casually. “Adri has just recovered from his death, and I’m very busy—Why don’t I tell you what happened here through ‘other forms’ later.”

“I want to go back to the Abyss. I have to prepare first.”

He took a deep breath and withdrew his attention. Oliver neatly stated his intention. He stretched his hand into his pocket and squeezed the gold pendant tightly.

“I need your help, Dylan. Please treat me and Bagelmaurus. I have to take it as a guide, but I am not familiar with healing arts.”

“Oh?” Jesse raised his eyebrows with interest. “This is different from what I guessed. You still have your sanity.”

“Nemo is still there, I have to… think carefully,” Oliver said as if he had exhausted all his strength.

“To be honest, I don’t recommend that you go to the Abyss in the near future,” Jesse responded almost coldly, throwing out a mute array casually. “The Demon King will not be hurt by the kinds of small fights below. You and I both know this. Now Mr. Light may be recovering, perhaps…”

He paused for a moment, didn’t go on, and instead changed the subject.

“You don’t seem to be too surprised by what happened to me.”

“Because I could not feel any more desperate,” Oliver replied calmly. “This is another thing I want to ask you, Dylan. Yes, I want to go back to the Abyss now, but I also know that if I just rush down into the Abyss in such a state, once I die, Nemo will really…”

The hand holding the Rest in Peace trembled badly, and Oliver’s tone became anxious.

“Nemo told me that you’re reluctant to reveal what you know because you’re worried that we’ll fall into despair. Now I repeat again, I can no longer feel any more desperate.”

“Really? Listening to your tone, you clearly think that your ‘Nemo Light’ is still there.” The smile on Jesse’s face faded. “If you really want to know the truth, you’d better abandon this naive idea.”

Oliver bit his lower lip, his back straightened, and there seemed to be flames burning in his pupils.

“I know what you are thinking. You think your love is enough to overcome everything. Given that nothing could keep him down, I guess Mr. Light took the initiative to sacrifice himself. Yes, how amazing. Truly admirable.”

“He’s still there,” Oliver insisted, almost crushing the gold pendant in his palm. “He can’t just… disappear like this.”

The world was so absurd that this was the last stability he could grasp.

Nemo said he wouldn’t die.

What’s more, even a huge monster that covered the world like Jesse Dylan still cared about Adrian Cross, who was an ordinary human being. Oliver turned his gaze to the sleeping knight commander.

“I don’t ‘love’ Adrian Cross.” It seemed that he was aware of Oliver’s sight, and Jesse responded faintly.

“If you look at it by human standards, I don’t love him. I will not be crazy for him, abandon everything for him, and abandon my own desires for him. I am just intrigued by him and am willing to let this human stay in the world for a while longer. When Adri wakes up, I will tell him under no uncertain terms.”

Then, in a rare moment, Jesse Dylan sighed.

“You are different from Mr. Light, aren’t you? There is no doubt that between the two of you, it’s a passionate love affair between normal humans. You love Nemo Light, who’s a ‘human’ deeply, but Nemo Light, who is a ‘human’, can no longer continue to exist.”

“Whether you admit it or not, Dylan, ‘caring’ is also an emotion. As long as I can have a conversation, as long as I can talk to him again…”

“Yes, you think that as long as you can talk, you can get your lover back.” Jesse shook his head, with a little more sarcasm in his tone.

“One piece of advice. In terms of sensibility, you’d better not use me as a reference. I said that, didn’t I? Mr. Light and I, no, the strength gap between me and the Demon King is enormous. He’s not the same kind as me—as a parasite who needs to communicate, my feelings are naturally more delicate.”

“You know I won’t give up because of these words, Dylan.”

“I know, I know… Alas, I’d better show it to you directly if you are ready to realize it.”

Jesse put Adrian’s head on his thigh, vacated a hand, and stretched out in Oliver’s direction.

The fingertips flickered with warm white light.

Oliver didn’t hesitate. He threw away the Rest in Peace and stretched out his hand to the fingertips…

First, there are countless fragments with mixed perspectives. It contained a bloody hole in someone’s chest. The knight commander, who was still standing in place, the screams of Commander Rugo, the roars of the fanatics, and all the blood and despair that had occurred in the past half a day.

Naturally, it also included the moment when Jesse points his finger on the forehead of the petrified believer.

Then he saw it.

That’s it, Oliver thought vaguely.

If this was the truth that his father came into contact with back then, maybe he could understand why his father was hit so hard—Not to mention his unprepared father, even himself who knew the original appearance of God and had been enlightened in advance, shuddered in an instant.

That was from the most primitive instinct, uncontrollable fear.

Why was Nemo Light able to reach the surface intact? Why did Bishop Hagen of the Abyssal Church declare that “the law hasn’t been broken”?

Why did the Demon King keep changing, being reborn, and never being destroyed? Why was the Abyss so vast?

Why did Jesse Dylan give up hope himself?

The truth of the matter was simpler and more desperate than he had guessed. Yes, the dark Abyss under the surface was extremely vast, and there were hundreds of millions of demons in the depths.

But this was just a crevice.

In the vision of “God”, a white behemoth was sleeping.

Oliver had never seen this kind of creature before. It was curled up with its wings wrapped around most of its body, almost balling itself into a standard sphere. A thin layer of rock wrapped around it, but because the white monster wasn’t flat, there were many irregular voids in it.

That gap was called the “Abyss”.

Deep in the Abyss, the strange white ground in the Ghost Throat was nothing more than the edge of the creature’s slightly erected wings. The Demon King that the expedition was fighting against was just a little bit of flesh with consciousness.

His father was really brave, Oliver thought to himself.

The title of the strongest man on the surface now sounded almost like a joke. If his father had sensed this scene through the “corpse” of the Demon King, what kind of mood would he be to face wars, power struggles, and intrigue?

It was right not to let Godwin follow.

People embraced their pride, stepped on the thin rock formation, and eulogized the Gods of their dreams between monsters while wrapped in this invisible gentle darkness.

But…

“Dylan.” Oliver wiped the tears he couldn’t help but shed with the back of his hand, and finally smiled again. Although it revealed some despair and bitterness, it could still be called a smile.

“…I still want to see him again.”

His Mr. White.

---

The author has something to say:

Those little cuties who once wondered why the proper Demon King didn’t go to the surface by itself!

…People cannot stand on their backs (.

——

Nemo on the surface is indeed just a piece of flesh containing consciousness, just like Jesse’s situation.

Oliver, the world-class first love (………………

The fuller goat may be the luckiest creature in the whole world.

---

Kinky Thoughts:

This is the bombshell of what the secret is all about. While to us readers, it may not seem that bad, think of it from the perspective of the characters. If one day all the things you ever believed in were shattered in an instant, you probably would have a mental breakdown too.

It seems like the entire world of Stray is built upon a monster, and the Abyss is the gap between that monster.

---

<<< || Table of Contents || >>>

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

---

Chapter 238: True Face

But it was just a human, he had thought before naming himself “Jesse Dylan.”

Jesse himself had no special interest in humans. It was just a young race that had appeared for less than 10,000 years. They were like ants or bees, and together they had the potential to make something surprising.

But that was all.

He watched everything, and on a whim would create a little natural disaster or harvest and adjust the distribution of various intelligent races. The larger intelligent races were the main sources of spellcasters. To ensure that there wasn’t a decrease in “rations”, he didn’t crowd them into piles. As for the fate of individuals, he never worried about it, let alone directly intervened.

After all, it was only for a moment.

Each intelligent race would create their own set of rules, virtues and vices, sacredness and filth. He watched coldly as those laws were changed and rewritten over time, only to find it interesting.

Those insignificant lives kept multiplying, fighting, loving, hating, and struggling to survive in the ruins. They founded countless religions, embraced powerful spells, and sacrificed food, fruits, prey, enemies, compatriots, and even themselves to the gods they imagined.

But he didn’t need that. He just needed those creatures that were like boiling water bubbles to do two things—continue to develop spells, use spells, and create a more brilliant civilization.

In this way, he wouldn’t feel hungry because of insufficient energy. Although it wasn’t a big deal to be hungry for a meal or two, the satisfaction of fullness made him even happier.

For some individuals, Jesse occasionally calculated their destiny, completely at random, as a pastime. Most of the results were unsurprisingly ordinary. The most special few, at best, were heroes or kings, and they died surrounded by wealth and power. In this perspective, the sleepy dragon was more interesting. Humans’ life span was extremely short, and a little accident was enough to make them lose their lives.

The first time he noticed Adrian Cross, Jesse didn’t expect much. A human cub, foolishly walking on the road of inevitable death. According to his own calculations, if he stayed in place, picked up the axe, and followed the example of his kind and sought cannibalism, he might have a chance to survive.

Such an idiot wasn’t rare to speak of.

But he calculated the seemingly short life of the human teenager at will, and his interest suddenly became a lot stronger.

Young Adrian Cross was destined to die on this snowy night without any solution, but he had a very high possibility of fundamentally affecting the fate of the entire surface; the kind of influence that wasn’t limited to just the “human world”, like becoming a hero of mankind to end wars or to unify all human countries.

A paradoxical and interesting result.

Jesse couldn’t help but pay a little attention and began to watch him seriously with interest.

The sky obscured by the blizzard was getting darker, and the possibility of human death was still 100%, while the possibility of affecting the surface was slowly decreasing. It seemed that it wouldn’t be a skeleton that would affect the fate of the surface, but it must be a surviving Adrian Cross.

Maybe he should let him die, Jesse thought, but the surface hadn’t changed significantly for thousands of years. That would arouse his interest, and the boredom was killing him, so he became a little curious.

That was just a fragile human being, and it stood to reason that it was completely under his own control. It shouldn’t be too much of a threat if he just allowed it to move out of his calculations.

Jesse didn’t hesitate for long before he got the answer that “it’s more important to have fun”. He separated a little bit of flesh from his body, threw it to the surface, turned it into a form acceptable to humans, and then put his consciousness into it.

This was the first time he rescued Adrian Cross.

This unscrupulous human gradually became stronger, and since it was no longer possible to calculate the fate of the other party, Jesse had to constantly keep a closer watch on him, so as to make sure the guy was still alive. Since he was alive, according to his own experience, the possibility of the other party changing the fate of the surface wouldn’t disappear so easily.

The discovery of Adrian Cross’s abnormality came after he rescued him for the first time.

Adrian Cross was amazingly talented. Jesse could sense those starry, unstoppable flashes of power returning from the surface, and Cross was a rather bright one among them. But he was in a very unnatural state—

The star would not twinkle.

The transaction request for magic was initiated by the spirit and was also influenced by it as well. No matter how devout a believer was, there would be a second when they would doubt the world and their faith would be shaken, causing a momentary flicker. From religious leaders to atheists, they would always falter—for the Gods, for themselves.

But the star belonging to Adrian Cross had never flickered since it became bright.

This wasn’t a human being he was familiar with, and Jesse suddenly found a goal for himself to relieve his boredom. He paid attention to the star in his mind with interest, eagerly waiting for it to flicker. With nothing else to do, he went to find out what Cross had been up to.

Cross became the commander of the Knights of Judgement.

Cross was named the “Shining Morning Star”.

Cross went to the border to participate in the battle for the dragon breath stone mine. In his flesh, Jesse was able to peep into Willard’s intention—to detonate the dragon breath stone mine and completely annihilate the elites of the Knights of Judgement.

This would not do. He had to wait for Cross to falter. Cross had to survive, but once Cross joined the battle, he would not have the ability to calculate everything with precision.

But he knew humans, and this would be just the thing to use as a means to trigger the flicker.

Jesse sat on the spire of the dragon breath stone mine, chewing a sweet grass root in his mouth briskly, and stopped responding to the star’s request.

Realizing that Adrian Cross had lost his strength, Willard became concerned about the upcoming detonation of the dragon breath stone mine, and immediately decided to fight for this precious resource again.

This was the second time he had pulled Cross away from the edge of death.

Restoring the opponent’s power immediately would make people suspicious, or perhaps internally, the Laddism Church would dispose of him. On the other hand, Jesse also wanted to see how the isolated star would react—

It still didn’t flicker.

Jesse wasn’t sure whether he should be satisfied or disappointed.

What happened next was even more interesting. Cross was locked up in Garland’s dungeon, and he hadn’t figured out how to get the other party out naturally, when Nemo Light took over the task of picking up the former knight commander.

The son of Flint Lopez, a royal descendant of Alban, and the will of “that one”.

It was like opening a magic candy box the size of a palm, and a torrent of snacks spewed out of it. Jesse almost immediately thought of the next course of action—Not only could he use their actions to rescue Adrian, but he could even find a chance to get into this interesting team, get up close and personal with his star, and take a look at the excitement along the way. After all, the opportunity was really rare, and it most definitely would have added a lot of fun.

Since the will of the “Demon King” had come to the surface, Jesse could basically guess what would happen next. Carpe diem had always been one of his guidelines.

This was the third time he used a slight technique to save Adrian from death.

He thought there would be a fourth time.

Adrian Cross didn’t falter for even half a second until his breathing stopped. People always said that religion and love were the easiest to drive people crazy, but he didn’t move. The knight didn’t fall in love, nor did he fall for lack of it. He longed for his fall, but he didn’t give up his faith because he didn’t get a response.

How ironic that he even died to protect “Jesse Dylan”.

He had lost. Jesse thought this should reasonably be the end of this story. Another small bubble had popped and disappeared, as humans always do.

But he was so peeved that he couldn’t even squeeze out a smirk.

Adrian Cross occasionally made him forget how fleeting humans were. Even if he knew his inhuman strength, the Knight of Judgment remained as he was. Cross didn’t despise, nor did he look up, but occasionally curled the corners of his mouth at him.

Foolish people, completely unaware of what exactly they were facing.

Standing at the entrance of the Abyss, Jesse Dylan, who had just awakened, grounded his teeth, and the more he thought about it, the more he felt suffocated. Fortunately, he had good objects on which to vent.

“…Please greet your gods properly.”

Originally, in order to let these fragile things relax their spirits and reproduce and develop more at ease, he made it a point to conceal his true form, but now he was in a bad mood.

Jesse lifted a strand of blond hair behind his ears and rubbed the blood stains on his fingertips. He stared at the fanatic in front of him coldly; his expression growing more blank.

At the moment when Jesse Dylan’s voice just fell, as always, no one was willing to buy the account of the notorious “Jesse the Viper”.

‘What an arrogant lunatic,’ the Laddist mage thought to himself. He opened his mouth instinctively, trying to throw out a few angry sentences, but then he couldn’t say anything…

It was a beautiful day, and just a second before, there was not a single cloud above the clear blue sky.

It should not have been so.

The sky disappeared, replaced by monsters that couldn’t be seen and couldn’t stop shifting and twisting.

He couldn’t describe it accurately in words. It completely covered the sky, and the margin extended to the other side of the horizon, as if wrapping around the world. The color of the monster that replaced the sky was dim, close to black, and every part was constantly twisting and surging. It was like a mixture of nightmares, pale corpses, and the whirlpool of the ocean.

But the sunshine was as usual, as if the world had made some kind of creepy mistake in the display. There was clearly darkness overhead, but the warm light eerily passed through the monster’s body and shone normally on the ground, as if the ground itself was glowing.

This wasn’t normal, it was too abnormal.

The mage took a half step back. His face was pale, and beads of sweat flowed down his cheeks.

“You just questioned God for about four seconds. Am I right?” The only remaining member of Tumbleweed whispered demonically.

The mage couldn’t answer. He opened his mouth slightly, and his mind couldn’t accept the scene in front of him for a while. He should scold the other party. He should kneel down and pray. But his muscles were tight, and he couldn’t move.

What was the “person” in front of him?

Countless strange thin limbs with flickering light hung down from the monsters that obscured the sky like aquatic plants in a stream that fluttered their leaves. They flickered with a white shimmer, especially around Jesse Dylan.

“It’s really sad. After all, you have always claimed to love me to death.” Jesse played with the thin limb closest to him with his fingers. “You should be honored that the god who provides you with magic is willing to be seen by you, and you’re still standing with your necks sticking out right now. How rude.”

Far above their heads, the approaching black behemoth twisted faster.

“Demon.” The mage struggled to squeeze a word out of his dry throat, and his whole body succumbed to the instinct of the creature, shaking almost unsteadily under the pressure of the heavy momentum.

Jesse raised his head and laughed loudly among the countless twisting and terrifying limbs.

“Sure enough, you never surprise me. Now I haven’t done anything, but you already gave me such a label—What would you use later when I make a move?”

He raised his chin eagerly. “It’s okay, it’s okay. After all, when eating cakes, I like to leave the strawberries for last. Well, let me think about it. Let’s start with you guys.”

After that, Jesse turned his head and casually flashed on the team of Mooney believers.

At this moment, the reconnaissance team had long been scattered. The Mooney believers stared at the sky in terror, shrinking their bodies in the malice that was almost suffocating, making their posture appear odd.

“It was the command of the Laddist fanatics who did this.” One of them, who still retained some sanity, emphasized loudly. “This is their internal conflict, isn’t it? We’re innocent! Innocent! Please…”

“When we rescued you all together down there, you didn’t seem to think it was an ‘internal matter of the Laddism Church’.” Jesse bared his teeth. “And just now, none of you even spoke up for him. Shhh, don’t lie to God. I’ve been watching you all.”

Jesse Dylan’s beautiful face was slightly distorted. “Of course, I understand. I get it. Because it’s the ‘right thing to do’ to protect you, right? As for the struggle afterwards, oh, that shit is on the Laddist fanatics. No one would blame you, at least not humans… But I think you got one thing wrong.”

The creepy smile returned to his face again. “What do human norms have to do with me?”

“No, no! If you do, our leader will respond—”

Beneath the massive monster, people desperately tried to hide from the thin limbs they could see but didn’t touch around them, as cries of fear mingled with nervous gasps.

“Relax. Like I said, I like to start with the least attractive part. It’s reasonable to save your lives. It’s only right to follow the rules of your game, and it’s also reasonable to use powerful surface magic through divine grace. A glory that belongs to God? It’s almost the same for you.”

Jesse snapped his fingers and his smile got more distorted.

“Everyone, say goodbye to your wonderful magic. You ignored my baby’s death, and I don’t want to deal with you anymore. What? Is this decision equally ‘justified’?”

The mage of the Laddism Church tried hard to suppress his fear and turned his neck with difficulty. The believers of the Mooney Sect were no less fanatical than themselves. No matter what Jesse Dylan did, they should scold the “demon”. The other party couldn’t be a God. He must have cut off God’s grace through some means…

There was silence.

Then there was a howl that made people’s hair stand upside down. The unique magic fluctuations of the strong disappeared in an instant. The faces of the believers of Mooney were ashen, and their heavy and rapid gasps were filled with despair.

No one made a sound.

“No.” The mage tried to move his gaze away from the terrifying monster on the top of his head.

It can’t be like this. There couldn’t be just one God, let alone…

“Then there’s you, our dear commander. You gave the order, right? If you agreed to wait for a while, even those brainless guys wouldn’t dare act so openly. Let’s see, let’s see… Well, because Adri is a human and humans don’t have many redeeming qualities. I can understand your contempt for them, because I can’t speak about liking them either.”

The dwarf commander shook his beard and his giant eyes rolled up, staring straight at the strange being in the sky. He waited for Jesse to approach and didn’t hesitate to cast the scroll that had already been ignited in his pocket.

Jesse caught it, and then the scroll that should have exploded instantly turned into dust.

“‘Vulcan Mansfield’s Aura’? Come on, my breath isn’t that fragile. Oh, I forgot, I actually don’t like breathing at all.”

“You can fool those idiots. They are a bunch of humans after all.” Rugo finally pulled his gaze back. “You can’t fool me. I don’t know what tricks you played, but I’ve been walking in the Abyss for many years, and I have long been prepared to sacrifice. As for losing power? Those groups of humans may care for your little trick, but we advocate wisdom and experience more! I’m not afraid of death, and even if I lose my sanity, my compatriots will not turn their backs on me!”

His voice was shrill and trembled with rage.

“Lord Mansfield, the Vulcan, will never forsake his people easily!”

“Well spoken.” Jesse whistled. “I’m going to forsake you—Oh, how I long wanted to try this. Take it easy. You’re so old that you should enjoy a happy life in your old age.”

For the first time, the leader of the Laddist fanatics let out a fearful whimper from his throat.

He could perceive that the magical aura was quickly leaving the body of the one-eyed dwarf. Unlike the “immediate disappearance” of the group of people following Mooney, a complete and slender magic circuit shook slightly in the air and was directly stripped out of the dwarf’s body.

There was no splashing of flesh and blood, but the dwarf screamed in disbelief. Under the gaze of other one-eyed dwarves, his body began to turn black, and clumps of bone spurs appeared at his joints. The yellow giant eye turned red, and the originally rickety spine twisted even more severely.

A faint demonic aura spread out.

“I will return you to your original master,” Jesse announced coldly, “but since you ordered Adri to be executed, as a companion, that one may not be willing to accept you, let alone help you repair the abyssal circuit.”

“Vulcan Mansfield hates demons. Well, let me think about it… In the face of a demon who’s familiar with the knowledge and hometown of the one-eyed dwarfs and has countless experience in exploring the Abyss, the believers of Vulcan will definitely give you the highest respect and let you enjoy your old age in peace.”

“You think it’s troublesome to meddle in human affairs and kill them. Then I won’t bother to destroy the circuit. It’s fair to take it back, right? Why, isn’t this a ‘miracle bestowed by Vulcan’? Pray, why don’t you pray?”

Jesse glanced at the other dwarves who were huddled in fear, and their eyes gradually became hostile.

The rest of the one-eyed dwarves received the same treatment as the Mooney Sect and were finally completely overwhelmed by fear. They screamed and prayed loudly, pounced on their former commander, and desperately tore the limbs of the “newborn demon”, as if intending to escape this desperate situation.

The scene in front of him was like the most desperate nightmare.

It shouldn’t be like this.

The Laddist mage wanted to escape, but he was as unable to move as his companions. It can’t be Zenni. That can’t be Zenni. His thoughts were chaotic and crazy, torn apart by fear.

Perhaps this was a scene between Mooney and Tumbleweed. In short, there must be something strange in all this. All the evidence was false. There must be an explanation behind it, including the oppressive evil creature above their heads.

An explanation that conforms to doctrines…

Yes, they must still be in the Abyss, caught in a certain demon’s terrible illusion. All this was false. Whether they die or wake up, this absurd nightmare must have an end. Their God was waiting and watching. In any case, the ideal paradise must be ahead.

“Congratulations, you’re the last batch.” Turning around with his back to the screams, wails, and gibberish, the expression on Jesse’s face could hardly be considered a “smile”.

He paced back to the mage and held his face with both hands.

“I can probably guess what you’re thinking,” he said sweetly, “and I’m pretty sure what you are about to think… Next, you’ll envy the ones who died in the beginning. Oh, you’re so shaken that God will be disappointed.”

‘Have to escape,’ The mage thought to himself. They were no match for this monster.

But he immediately discovered that he could not move. His feet, wrapped in boots, were deforming, piercing the thick leather boots, revealing a shapeless, rough stone surface.

“You… demon…”

His muscles were turning into clusters of stones, and the alienation spread rapidly from the soles of his feet, accompanied by severe pain that could almost make people faint. His arms clung to the side of his body uncontrollably, his jaw trembled and raised, and half of his torso was completely petrified…

In the horror of losing control, the mage gritted his teeth and directly slashed his throat with the dragon breath stone dagger in his hand.

Whether this was reality or an illusion, he recognized it. Instead of continuing to be tormented by this maddening unknown and fear, it was better to just return to Zenni’s side…

But he failed to succeed.

“’The believers of Zenni will not do such a cowardly thing as suicide. We will die with faith, in battle, in a fate we cannot foresee.” Jesse clenched the mage’s wrist mercilessly, held the dagger easily in his hand, and turned it into powder. “This is a black and white doctrine, Mr. Devotee. I’m afraid your behavior is not appropriate.”

“It must be… the Demon King’s conspiracy…”

The petrification continued to spread.

The mage’s hands were no longer able to move, his chin was forced to be raised, and his face was facing the sky. His throat gradually turned to stone, and in the unbearable pain, he could only let out a desperate and vague whine. He couldn’t close his eyes, but he wasn’t blind. His entire field of vision was occupied by the monster in the sky.

“’Don’t run away from your faults, just as you look directly at all the heart-wrenching truths.’” Jesse shrugged. “I talk to Mr. Demon King every day, so I’ll make an exception and lend you my vision. It’s not a bad idea to add some thoughts to your future.”

The blond young man spoke as he pointed his finger at the forehead of the mage that was still normal flesh.

The overly vast scene smashed into the brain, almost shattering what was left of the fanatic’s sanity. His brain and heart almost exploded from the horror of what was in his vision.

No.

The fanatic used his last strength to squeeze out a dissonant scream. His voice sounded almost outside of the human realm.

It can’t be like this.

“Do you like it? The truth you follow.” Jesse’s voice was getting softer. “Humans have always been like this. You count barnacles and algae scraps, order around small fish and shrimp, and give them names—this is a subordinate demon, that is an intermediate demon, and the stronger ones are superior demons.”

“But you have been ignoring the whale under your feet.”

But the mage had completely turned into a living statue and couldn’t respond. Just like him, the other Laddist fanatics were not far behind as they stood on the ground in silence and despair, looking at the sky together.

The stony eyelids couldn’t be closed and still have vision, forcing them to be wide open. A single tear rolled down the stone, unknowing whether it was out of fear or despair.

Jesse clapped his hands in satisfaction.

“To avoid you getting bored, your feelings are still there—hearing, touch, pain. The dryness of your eyes, hunger, or thirst will not disappear. Thanks to the Withered Castle, this was an inspiration from humankind.” Jesse Dylan gathered his blond hair together and snorted coldly. “But don’t worry, your God is equally considerate. Even if you can’t eat and become swarmed with the poisonous insects that will cause you trouble, I will ensure that each and every one of you will live here until you die of old age without ever having to worry about the Abyss again.”

“Believe it or not, feel free to do as you please next. Pray for a delusional god, or give up your faith—Oh, I’m willing to be watched by you all the time. I must say, my generosity is quite commendable.”

After that, he turned around and paid no attention to the group of stone statues moving strangely behind him.

The reconnaissance team, which originally wasn’t missing a single person, was now in pieces. Except for the blue dragon, who was still in a coma because of its loss in strength and knew nothing, there was only one sane member left, which was the blind Hamlin Elmer. The young man was shrinking in his chair, shivering and clutching his ears tightly.

Jesse glanced at the other one-eyed dwarves with bloodstain beards who were tearing up the commander’s corpse and the Mooney believers who had fallen into madness not far away and decided to let the young man stay in the dark for a while longer.

He had more important things to do.

In this world, there had never been a life that could return from death, and resurrection didn’t exist. There were mages who perfectly replicated the living body of the deceased before, but it was just demented flesh that wasn’t worthy of the deceased himself.

Jesse Dylan sighed, embraced the still warm corpse in his arms, then bent down gently and let his body lie on the ground. While relieving the time delay spell he had imposed, he looked at the emptiness in the other party’s chest.

“Ugh.” The blond young man slowly brushed the other’s cheek with his hand. “I left Hamlin Elmer behind. You have to praise me on that. And maybe we’ll have a bunch of questions to discuss. Changing the fate of the surface? Maybe this possibility has been realized already… and I’m part of the surface.”

He didn’t activate a healing spell. Jesse knew very well that even if he repaired the body, which had stopped most of its functions, he would only be able to get a body with an intact shape.

“This is something I learned from the Abyss. How to put it, not bad Mr. Light.”

Jesse retracted his right hand, stroking the other cheek, and chattered on in a relaxed and flat tone.

Then the hand broke into his ribs and plunged directly into his chest. The mimicry of a human body was ripped apart and blood kept gushing out. However, there was no distortion on Jesse Dylan’s face. After an unbearable agitation of the flesh, Jesse raised his brows at the beating flesh in his hand.

“I voluntarily give up this piece of flesh, this power,” he said simply, as white light glowed around his heart. “Now I’m willing to give it away, and this life span is shared with the contractor.”

Then he glanced at the hot organ in his hand with a complicated expression, sighed heavily again, and stuffed it into the hollow of Adrian Cross’ chest.

The living piece of meat squirmed quickly, instantly repairing the defect in the other party’s chest. His own broken ribs and wounds healed in an instant, and a cleansing spell cleaned up the blood on his hands. Jesse watched the human body in front of him tremble, and under the penetration and wrapping of the white light, signs of breathing reappeared.

“Oh, this is really the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. For the fourth time, Adrian Cross.” Jesse grabbed the other party’s mangled collar, and finally showed a flirtatious smile again. “You have to thank me for this.”

“…Speaking of which, according to human romance, should I kiss you now?”

---

Kinky Thought:

That was some serious face slapping. Don’t piss off your God. This chapter sent chills down my spine.

---

<<< || Table of Contents || >>>

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

---

Chapter 237: Wrath of the Gods

Jesse Dylan of Tumbleweed lost his voice, and the fluctuations of another spiritual sacrifice spell became weaker and weaker. Hamlin could basically guess what happened. After all, after spending all these years in the choir of the Laddism Church, “Spiritual Sacrifice” was the only spell they were allowed to practice.

Jesse Dylan fell into a serious injury or coma, making it impossible to continue to deliver magic through the seal. As for Adrian Cross, from the perspective of the battle that took place not long ago, he most likely didn’t have much energy to spare.

Now that they have left the abyss, the two members of Tumbleweed were extremely weak, and one of them showed clear signs of deformation. It was a good time for the fanatics to act—even if the Pope himself pursued the matter afterwards, he couldn’t be able to fault the procedure and could only eat this hidden loss.

The palms of Hamlin’s hands resting on the armrests were full of sweat.

Rugo, the one-eyed dwarf, despised humans. Even if he would agree with Mr. Cross because of his strength, it didn’t really mean he really cared about Cross’ life.

He could return to the surface safely and unscathed. He just needed to continue to pretend to be weak and watch all this. When this task was over, he would be able to leave the choir and return to his home where he was no longer poor.

But….

Hamlin Elmer raised his head and turned his blind eyes in the direction of Adrian Cross’s aura.

The traitor of the Laddism Church, the black badge of sin. When he originally stayed in the Holy Land of Hatfield, Hamlin had heard a lot of rumors about Adrian Cross.

He colluded with a high-level figure of the Mooney Sect and lost his power at the most important moment for the battle of the dragon breath stone mine, causing the elites of the Knights of Judgement to fall into a bitter battle and he was greatly wounded. Not to mention carrying the mark of a contract with a superior demon and inducing the “Battlefield Saint” Cahill Edwards to form a contract with a superior demon.

Despite the benefits Tumbleweed bestowed on his brother, in that suffocating darkness, Mr. Cross was the only one who found him in poor condition.

The only one.

Hamlin shivered and lowered his body, tremblingly trying to connect the sacrificial blood mark to the back of the neck of the former Knight of Judgement.

His older brother was waiting for him to go home. It was a felony to use spiritual sacrifice against people outside the holy church—not to mention apostates—without authorization. Once discovered…

Impulsive and extremely stupid, Hamlin thought to himself. It had never occurred to him that the first time he attempted to defy the dogmas, he would have to take such a risk of this magnitude.

But if the other party just wants a little time, a little time to protect his companion.

Mr. Cross’s voice trembled a little. Would the “Shining Morning Star” also feel fear?

Hamlin clasped his cold hands and shuddered as he gasped for breath.

[O merciful God, all glory belongs to you. Please forgive me for my sins and take me out of this quagmire.]

He prayed desperately from the bottom of his heart, and then channeled his power regardless.

Adrian Cross, who had gained the power, didn’t pray.

After many pleas to no avail, he simply accepted the status quo. The former Knight of Judgment just stood there quietly, holding on to his broken body, with a terrifying peaceful smile on his face.

The wariness radiated from the tattered silver sword to the surrounding area, but whenever anyone tried to approach, the blade was bound to bring up a bloodstain when it cut through. Whether it was armor, a heavy shield, or another sword, all became paper-thin and fragile in front of that sharp aura.

Considering Hamlin’s own weak condition, Adrian didn’t dare ask for too much strength. He stayed there stubbornly, with sword skills as his main attack form while using spells as an auxiliary, without retreating a single step.

Like a fortress with breath.

Until now, how many minutes had passed?

A new round of spells blasted down, and the field of vision was stained with blood red. Adrian found that his breathing had begun to become unstable.

But the person behind him still didn’t wake.

…Then it continued.

He was gradually moving towards death, and Adrian knew this very well. After several fierce battles in succession, his hands trembled uncontrollably, and his muscles seemed to be completely torn apart. Excessive blood loss made his entire body cold.

But the smile at the corner of his mouth became bigger.

What a familiar cold, Adrian thought groggily. Just like sixteen years ago? Or seventeen years ago?

It should be at that time that he first met the guy behind him who couldn’t wake up.

Adrian couldn’t remember too many details about the war; only the scorched tree trunks, swollen corpses, and the overwhelming snowstorms after the war. In the winter, when there was a lack of food, human cannibalism was followed by demons and beasts swarming to snatch the remaining corpses.

Grief turned into hunger, hunger turned into despair, and then violence was born. Chaos.

And he stepped on the thick snow, walking alone in the storm at night.

After losing everything in the war, Adrian, who was still a teenager, didn’t have much choice—he didn’t want to stab his former neighbor’s head with the tip of a branch for a little bedding and hard bread, but he didn’t want to shrink into the ruins of blood splashing and beasts wandering, waiting for death to come.

In the endless madness, a person who wasn’t strong enough was very likely to become the dinner of a certain beast or a certain number of people.

Fortunately, he wasn’t desperate.

The Laddism Church was not far away. They were willing to accept war orphans of the right age. He just needed to walk through the woods next to the ruins of the village for two days and nights. Amid a blizzard that seemed never-ending, such a move was tantamount to suicide.

However, that was his only choice.

The wind blasted ice that made the skin of Adrian’s face numb. The shabby clothes that weren’t thick enough couldn’t withstand the cold, and his feet had already lost consciousness, and he could only shiver and count his steps.

He didn’t know how long he had been walking, and all he saw was a vast expanse of white. Adrian couldn’t even tell where he was coming from and in which direction he was going. To make matters worse, he may have been going in circles like a headless fly.

The dead sporadic trees were buried deep in the snow, gradually turning into the same appearance in his eyes.

What followed was an increasingly thickening darkness.

After a daytime journey, facing the gradually darkened sky, Adrian tasted true despair for the first time.

He thought he could find one or two wood stakes to resist the cold wind, and if he was lucky, he could get some dead grass and soft bark for food, but he didn’t find anything. There were only scattered dead trees and white snow left in the world.

He was about to die.

Adrian inserted the thick branch in his hand into the snow layer as deep as his knees, almost instinctively moving forward. Everything in front of him began to blur, and the skin rubbing against the rough clothing began to become hot and painful. His breathing seemed to be frozen, his throat was blocked by the cold wind, and he couldn’t breathe.

The last thing left in his memory was the snow; a blur of glowing white snow in the night. Adrian knelt down and let them catch his body. He raised his head laboriously and stretched out his hand in the direction of the imaginary church.

But he knew in his heart that the snow here would bury him and then spit out his bones in the spring.

‘I don’t want to die yet,’ Adrian, who was still a teenager at the time, thought numbly.

That was his last thought before he lost consciousness.

What happened afterwards was enough to be called a miracle.

In fact, until not long ago, Adrian Cross wasn’t sure if it was a bizarre illusion he had had at his deathbed. Or maybe he had simply encountered some kind passerby and his frozen brain had distorted reality.

The first thing to come was a warm breath, and his gaze passed through the eyelashes decorated with ice grains. Stimulated by the long-lost warmth, Adrian swept his eyes unconsciously.

He saw a row of huge sharp teeth belonging to beasts, but his nose, which was so frozen that he lost consciousness, didn’t smell the peculiar fishy smell of the beast, and there was only a vague sound of wind in his ears.

The excessively tall beast was staring at him with icy blue eyes. Its gaze was cold and emotionless, like its color. He still couldn’t escape the fate of being eaten by beasts, or so Adrian thought casually, but at least now he wouldn’t feel too much pain.

However, what came immediately was not the tearing of sharp teeth, but an ocean of soft fur.

The huge beast laid down, curled his body into a ball, and wrapped him in the middle of its body. The soft and smooth white long hair seemed to have magic power, and a strange sense of floating wrapped him, and his limbs tingled to regain consciousness. Adrian subconsciously grabbed the long soft hair, making sure he smelled a little mixed aroma of berries and milk.

If this was an illusion before death, perhaps death may not be as terrifying as he thought.

The long, fluffy white fur insulated him from the blizzard’s hail while allowing him to breathe freely. It was so warm that the overly comfortable softness couldn’t give any semblance of reality.

But after waking up the next day, Adrian found that the furry illusion was still in place. He finally struggled to get himself out of the pile of long hair. The huge beast was still balled up, and the white fur and snow almost fused as one. Those icy blue eyes were closed tightly, and the weird horn gleamed with delicate golden light under the sun.

It was also snoring slightly.

The blizzard had stopped at some point and the sun poured down. He no longer felt hungry or thirsty. Adrian stretched out his arm, passed through the thick long hair, and tentatively poked the beast. The other party just snorted a few times and balled up even tighter.

Adrian looked around subconsciously. Under the clear blue sky, he could see a little bit of the spire belonging to the church.

The destination was right in front of him, but he clearly hadn’t gone very far last night. Given what was happening right now was bizarre enough. Adrian pulled out a thick branch in his hair and gave the weird animal a clumsy salute.

The other party smacked its mouth in its sleep, without meaning to wake up. The elegant behemoth was still lying in the snow, as beautiful as a dream.

The matter after that was simple. Adrian arrived at the church with strong support, and then was successfully taken in. He ran back to the woods on the first day he got his winter clothes, but the weird beast had long since disappeared.

It also didn’t exist in any books, murals, legends, or even the nonsense of bards. Adrian tried to ask the high-level officials of the church and the residents who have lived there for a long time, but all he got were basically “never seen it”, “you’re just seeing things” or similar responses.

The beast only existed in his broken memory, leaving no other traces.

After that, every winter, Adrian would go to the woods to look for it, chasing an increasingly vague illusion—until that winter day when the promotion order came, and he was to become the Chief Justice of the Knights of Judgement.

“Goodbye.”

Adrian, who was no longer a teenager, lowered his head and said goodbye to the woods for the last time.

The moment he raised his head, he seemed to see it again—that beautiful beast, standing not far away from the dead trees. Its icy blue eyes were full of playfulness.

But when Adrian looked closely, only snow could be seen among the brown-black branches covered with ice edges.

[You finally found me. Adri, I told you, right? I like the way you are now. It makes me feel… very nostalgic.]

Jesse Dylan had known for a long time… That bastard who wouldn’t wake up.

In the gradually blurred consciousness, the memories faded.

Adrian raised the sword in his hand. His ears filled with the sounds of his own breathing and heartbeat. His swollen eyelids were almost too heavy to lift, and his body was instinctively resisting the waves of sword blades, sharp arrows, and spells.

The silver sword let out an overwhelmed sound. The former Chief Justice of the Knight of Judgement could hardly see anything in front of him.

He gripped the somewhat deformed silver sword. His remaining strength wasn’t even enough to raise the corner of his mouth. The fanatics seemed to be shouting something, but he could no longer understand the meaning of those words.

Adrian could only barely distinguish the spells that appeared in front of him.

The former Chief Justice of the Knight of Judgement was once very good at this endless pursuit. It was an extremely destructive spell and difficult to launch. His opponent must have had a high-level scroll specifically used for Jesse Dylan.

The warm white light pierced his eyes, like bright snow in the sun.

[Promise me, don’t die easily.]

[Then you have to protect me. I’m very fragile.]

He had promised two things to the capricious Mr. Dylan, but now it seemed he must break one of those promises.

Since he could choose only one, he would choose the one he liked best. The other party had given him so many years of time, so it was time to give it back.

“Goodbye,” he said softly, suddenly wanting to hear Jesse Dylan ask that question again.

[Hey Adri, do you like me a little bit today?]

Since he didn’t like lying, how should he answer this time?

In order to avoid excessive loss of magic and kill Hamlin, Adrian cut off his own spiritual sacrifice. He didn’t dodge the burning white light, but just squeezed out all the remaining magic he had in his body to build a final protection.

The spell penetrated the flesh and blood, and then dissipated. The deformed sword was inserted into the ground, but Adrian Cross still didn’t fall.

Only pools of blood continued to accumulate at his feet, and then spread. The warm blood gradually cooled and soaked the long coat of the blond young man behind him.

Two or three seconds passed, and Jesse Dylan blinked.

This journey to the Abyss wasn’t at all pleasant. As if a complete release of instinct, the hostility of the Demon King’s own body overwhelmed him without hesitation. The connection with his own body was severed, and the battle at the Pale Hive had completely overdrawn his powers, so he almost didn’t have the power to maintain his form.

Jesse raised his hand and was satisfied to find that he had returned to his human form.

Then he propped one hand on the ground, and as soon as he sat up, he frowned because of the wetness of his hands and the blood that filled his nose.

“Adri.” Jesse turned his gaze as usual and looked at the figure standing beside him.

But his knight commander did not respond to the call. Jesse raised his eyes and even saw a small piece of sky through the terrifying hole in the opponent’s left chest.

The blond young man fell silent.

“……No.” After a while, he retracted his gaze and muttered softly. “It seems that I’m still a little late.”

After that, he stood up and scanned the fanatics who were standing quietly around him, as if they hadn’t recovered from the scene in front of them.

“Gentlemen, gentlemen.” Jesse Dylan’s tone sounded as brisk as ever.

His star went out. Adrian Cross was a mortal, after all, and humans were fragile and transient. They easily died for various strange reasons. Even if he was once a “Shining Morning Star”, he would inevitably slowly decay, turn into bones, and eventually be completely forgotten by the world, like a worm molting in the corner of an abandoned house.

“It’s true that something terrible happened just now, but it was all a misunderstanding, I promise. I can explain.” Jesse raised his hands and stepped forward, soaked in blood but was strangely mellow.

Their main target, the apostate Cross, was dead, and there was nothing to be feared. The fanatics looked at the man in front of them and frowned.

Jesse Dylan had completely returned to his human appearance, and all the abnormal magic fluctuations had disappeared at that moment. After achieving the main purpose and losing important evidence of his deformation, things began to get a bit tricky, but they didn’t wait for each other to agree on the next second…

“…I should have said this,” The abnormally beautiful blond young man walked past the body of the former Chief Justice who hadn’t fallen down, and the smile on his face completely disappeared. “But I’m a little pissed off right now.”

The only remaining member of Tumbleweed took another step forward, picked up the half-unconscious gray parrot on the ground, and threw it on the back of the fuller goat.

“Actually, correction. I’m quite pissed off.”

Jesse thought for a while, and his tone was laced with some seriousness. He didn’t look back at the corpse, yet his tone was cold and calm.

“I haven’t been able to beat Adri, yet you killed him. Like I said, I don’t like losing.”

It was clear the other party hadn’t taken any action, but the backs of the fanatics who stood closest to him suddenly felt chills down their spine. This was instinctive fear, as if it wasn’t a human in front of them but some unknown and terrifying natural enemy.

They didn’t wait for the orders and attacked directly.

But their goal didn’t even bother to cast a look. Jesse Dylan glanced at the spell that rushed into his eyes. The spell stopped in mid-air for a few seconds, and then returned the same way.

The deadly spell passed through the caster’s head, and the sound of his body falling to the ground was particularly heavy in the silence.

“You made the first move.” Jesse shook his finger. “Remember, now even Adri or our leader can’t make excuses to scold me.”

“Adrian Cross is dead.” The leader of the mages swallowed as he hissed back.

Commander Rugo didn’t make a sound. He looked at Jesse in front of him with his big yellow eyes and his thin hands touched a scroll.

“Isn’t it obvious? I’m not stupid,” Jesse responded lightly, taking another step forward. “It was clearly agreed that he wasn’t allowed to die easily… He was quite fragile before, and I only took my eyes off him for a single moment. Ugh.”

“You can’t attack us.” The fanatic in the red robe glanced at his companion, who fell to the ground. His voice was shrill. “We haven’t violated any dogma. Even if the Pope was here, he has no right to interfere with our actions!”

“Adrian Cross was originally a despicable apostate and a little merit escorting can’t offset his sins. As for you, Dylan. Stay where you are now, otherwise we will start attacking—”

“Apostate… Ha.” A sneer gradually appeared on Jesse Dylan’s beautiful expressionless face.

“What do your dogmas matter to me? For the benefit of the surface? To be honest, I know your stupid dogmas, but none of them stipulates that the deformation check must be carried out immediately. Let me see the time… Well, I just fell into a coma for fifteen minutes. What? Did you receive some divination in advance that if you didn’t check immediately that the surface would explode in fifteen minutes?”

“If you’re really justified, my stupid Adri wouldn’t resist the so-called ‘righteousness’. Make your own dogmas, preach your own justice, and then exploit the loopholes of the dogmas that you have set for yourself. Your goal was Adri from the beginning, right? Using me to do this… Ah, how wonderful.”

The blond young man clapped his hands insincerely and took another step forward.

“Attack!” the mage ordered loudly. “For the glory of Zenni!”

Several white rays of light shot out from all directions.

Then it disappeared halfway, leaving no trace.

“I’ve changed my mind.” Jesse Dylan glanced at the corpses that were mutilated from his spell rebound and rubbed his chin. “It’s boring to kill you all so quickly… After all, according to your delusions, if you die in battle against ‘evil’, you can still enter paradise, or some other shithole.”

What answered him was a more rapid and violent attack.

But those earth-shattering spells still melted quietly halfway through. The sharp blade burned and vaporized directly before it touched the corners of Jesse Dylan’s clothes.

“As I see it, you all deserve a reward for being so pious… Truly deserving of a careful ‘commendation’.”

Jesse walked directly to the leading mage and grabbed the opponent by the collar. The tone of voice was very soft, but the malice in it was almost overflowing.

“Don’t you want to maintain the glory of God and keep believers pure? Isn’t your ultimate goal to return to your ideal paradise and prostrate yourself in front of Zenni?”

The mage touched the dragon breath stone dagger in his pocket, raised his hand and stabbed Jesse Dylan in the abdomen, but it was like piercing into the void, as he couldn’t hurt his opponent in the slightest.

“What the hell are you?” he squeezed a question out from between his teeth.

“I have many names. Which one do you want to know?” Jesse’s voice was clear and loud. “Now my name is Jesse Dylan, but the elves like the name ‘Celestine’, and those one-eyed dwarfs call me ‘Mansfield’. Did you see the dragon fainting over there? They call me ‘Dimitrios’.”

Then, the blond monster curled his lips sarcastically.

“And you always call me ‘Zenni’.”

“What nonsense are you talking about—”

“Next, please greet your gods properly.”

---

Kinky Thoughts:

What is going on with this arc. Everyone be dying!!! My poor little heart can’t take it.

---

<<< || Table of Contents || >>>