Chapter 157 - 126: Demon Origin

Chapter 157: Chapter 126: Demon Origin

’Its birth was driven by the players!’

’It was the players, craving power, who actively chose the power to devour and evolve.’

’That was during the third round of the King’s Game, and a powerful external force was definitely involved. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have been enough to change the game’s very mode.’

’The key turning point was the Bloody Coup. To preserve his physical body, Gutaf had to use another kind of power to regenerate his flesh and blood.’

’This also meant that he loosened his suppression of another power. Though it was only for a brief moment, it was enough to shatter the balance once again.’

’As for why Gutaf needed to preserve his physical body, it was obviously because he had just become a Demon and hadn’t even completed his transformation. His physical body was still incredibly important.’

Inside the chaotic Royal Palace, Yuwen Yong organized the thoughts racing through his mind, waiting for the Demon to appear.

He was originally a Demon Hunter apprentice who had come to the Inner Ring to become a true Demon Hunter.

The Demon Hunters were an ancient lineage. To complete their Awakening, they required a very special medium: Demon Aura.

Generally, the promotion process for a Demon Hunter was as follows.

Find the trail of a Demon, collect enough Demon Aura, complete the Spirit Awakening, and become a Demon Man.

But this wasn’t the end. On the contrary, it was only the beginning.

Because the next thing a Demon Hunter had to do was kill that Demon and Devour its power.

This was the only way for Demon Hunters to increase their strength; otherwise, their power would not grow in the slightest.

After killing this Demon, the Demon Hunter would find a new target, fuse with the Demon Aura of another, and begin a new cycle.

In the Outer Ring, the Demons were all too powerful and completely unsuitable for apprentice Demon Hunters to advance.

That was why Yuwen Yong and his group of apprentices had entered the Inner Ring to search for their targets.

This was tacitly approved and sanctioned by the World Government. After all, the Inner Ring had an endless supply of weak Demons.

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"Demon" is a general term. Their origins are incredibly ancient, having accompanied generations of intelligent civilizations.

There is only one way for a Demon to be created: some foolish intelligent being must Sacrifice their own Soul.

Naturally, this is an act that no intelligent civilization can tolerate.

Because it undermines the very foundation and potential of the entire civilization.

After the first intelligent being was born, its descendants automatically gained the ability to connect to a high-dimensional point.

This raises a question: do its descendants all connect to the same high-dimensional point?

The answer: [Yes]!

A point in a high dimension, even as it begins to fall, is something that a being from the three-dimensional World cannot possibly hope to perceive in its entirety.

Any descendant after the Ancestor is only connected to a single facet of that high-dimensional point.

As for how many facets a point in a high dimension can be divided into?

To the beings of the three-dimensional World, the number is infinite.

Therefore, any life form within the group can possess its own Soul, and can even claim that the high-dimensional point it connects to is exclusively its own.

Because the Soul is indeed their own.

But from a high-dimensional perspective, the intelligent beings of the same group are indeed all connected to the same point.

The act of an individual life form Sacrificing its [Soul] is, naturally, a betrayal of the entire group.

Because it directly destroys a facet of the high-dimensional point, essentially accelerating its fall.

No matter how much of its Soul an individual Sacrifices, even if it’s 0.000001, it is still an unforgivable betrayal.

Thus, any intelligent civilization will loathe Demons to its core. Once discovered, they will ensure the Demon is utterly annihilated.

This is also why the Demon Hunter profession has not been suppressed by the World Government.

······

From a human perspective, Demons are classified as low-rank, mid-rank, and High-Rank Demons.

This classification is based on a Demon’s "soul scale."

Generally, once an intelligent being Sacrifices its Soul—that is, once its Soul becomes damaged—its soul scale will drop.

The soul scale of an ordinary human is 6, which is the baseline for humanity.

Using this as a dividing line, Demons with a soul scale higher than 6 are [High-Rank Demons].

Demons with a soul scale equal to 6 are mid-rank Demons.

As for Demons with a soul scale below 6, they are, of course, low-rank Demons.

As for those idiots with no Soul at all, they died long ago, of course.

The reasons Demons choose to Sacrifice their Souls vary, as do the benefits they receive.

But the reason they are called [Demons] is, of course, because they share common traits.

After their Souls become damaged—or rather, after the Sacrifice—the connection between their Consciousness and Soul actually becomes stronger.

Thus, they gain an ability called the [Eye of the Demon].

Of course, the Demons themselves call it the Eye of the Soul.

They claim to be able to see the Souls of other living beings and pierce through their Consciousness.

But according to generations of research by Demon Hunters, this is just nonsense spouted by the Demons.

What they can actually see is merely the projection of the Soul in the three-dimensional World—in other words, that special Soul Dimension promoted by the [Dimensional Reduction Faction].

But all they can see is a blurry shadow.

The vast majority of Demons are low-rank Demons, who can only stare blankly and are completely unable to exert any influence.

The way Demons can truly affect most living beings is through the Demon Aura they produce.

Once a Soul is damaged, its decay is irreversible. Every moment, a small part of a Demon’s Soul flakes off and is annihilated.