Killing (1)

The vicious brutality of demons and a portion of humanity's rationality.

Together, they formed Orsaga's soul.

Although his rationality had been darkened by demonic instinct, it had also left him with a devil-like cunning amid his ferocity. Unlike most demons, whose muscles decided their brains, Orsaga let his brain decide his muscles.

That did not mean he would be cowardly. A demon's nature alone ensured that he would never cower. Every demon had to kill hundreds of its own kind merely to emerge from the banks of the Styx. The timid, the spineless, and the insufficiently savage had long been eliminated, becoming nourishment for other demons. Trash had never possessed the possibility of leaving the Styx's banks in the first place.

For Orsaga, if the benefits were great enough, he could calmly accept gambling with his life. After all, even an Ordinary Human could be hit by a car while going out to buy groceries.

Being alive itself meant taking risks.

Even Ordinary Humans were like this.

Not to mention Orsaga, who lived in a place like the Bottomless Abyss, where one was born free and died at random. To him, risk was simply an inevitable factor!

But that did not mean he would gamble with his life before he had even seen any benefit.

Either the temptation had to be astonishing enough to make him forget the dangers, or he had to wait until he had some degree of confidence.

Once he had confidence, he would naturally give it a try.

As Orsaga strolled through the forest, he might not have been a little girl picking mushrooms, but he was at least a diligent and hardworking Lesser Demon.

Those he encountered—passing by, hiding, playing dead, whole, crippled, large, small—as long as they were still alive, he delivered them all from this world, leaving them without a single regret. It fulfilled the basic ethics of being a good demon and freed them from worldly troubles.

Orsaga's gaze sharpened as he stopped.

Though numerous obstacles blocked his view, he could see a lifeform actively approaching him. Judging from the intensity of its energy alone, it was not much weaker than him. In other words, under normal circumstances, there would be no absolute gap in strength between them.

However, Orsaga was, after all, a player with cheats. With the abilities granted by the system, his actual combat power was at least a cut above demons of equal qualities.

Orsaga also understood what happened to those who were too arrogant in the Bottomless Abyss. After determining the opponent's approximate strength, he did not underestimate it. Instead, he cautiously adjusted his magic power. He had Energy Vision, but who was to say the other side did not have Energy Suppression?

There were plenty of freaks in the Bottomless Abyss. Who knew whether some mutated demon could strangle him to death with one hand despite being at the same level?

Secretly gathering the power within his body, he lightly swished his tail from side to side as he waited for the other party to come to him.

He was not left waiting for long. As if it had sensed that Orsaga had discovered it, the creature that had been steadily and unhurriedly approaching him gradually accelerated.

Whoosh!

Crack!!

Accompanied by the sound of something slicing through the air at high speed, a Demonized Plant dozens of meters tall exploded around its middle in front of Orsaga, scattering wood chips and sap everywhere.

A wooden spear roughly 1.4 meters long shot out from within, carrying an unstoppable sharpness as it flew toward his chest with lightning speed, intending to nail Orsaga to the ground in one strike.

Faced with such an attack, he did not take it head-on and simply shifted aside to evade it.

There was no point wasting energy by blocking it directly, and he did not know whether it had been coated in poison.

Tap, tap, tap...

Amid footsteps like those of a warhorse, the figure of his opponent emerged from the gray dust and fine rain of mud kicked up by the fallen Demonized Plant with its broken trunk.

It was about as tall as Orsaga. Its reindeer-like head bore the face of a middle-aged man, its eyes filled with a thirst for slaughter, saliva constantly dripping from its mouth. Its antlers were hung with the eyeballs of various creatures, some still oozing blood. They appeared fresh, likely harvested not long ago.

Its upper body was human-like, with two arms, while its lower body resembled that of a warhorse. Several spears were strapped to its back, and its entire body was covered in powerful muscles that left no doubt as to its strength.

Orsaga sniffed the scent it gave off and found it somewhat familiar. After some information from his Inheritance Memory flashed through his mind, a bloodthirsty smile appeared on his face. He met the other party's assessing gaze and spoke in a somewhat hoarse voice in Demonic Language.

"A Mutated Demonized Creature trying to become a Half-Demon? It seems you not only possess considerable intelligence, but have also undergone Awakening and gained some special Inheritance Memory. I never expected to encounter such a rare specimen..."

This was Orsaga's first time speaking with another creature. Ever since his birth, none of the creatures he had encountered had been capable of communication. Even though those Lesser Demons possessed intelligence, their wild natures still held the upper hand. They were more like beasts than Sentient Beings and had no value for communication.

But the unknown Demonized Creature before him was different.

Although its eyes were still filled with the same murderous emotion as other creatures, they possessed the liveliness of Sentient Beings. The aura of a Transformation Ritual emanating from its body also proved that it possessed no small degree of intelligence. Otherwise, it would never have been able to use such a thing.

"A mutated demon?"

Hearing Orsaga's words, the other party was also stunned. It had not expected to encounter a Lesser Demon capable of communication. Normally, only demons at the Lower Demon level communicated with others, because only after advancing to Lower Demon did demons possess intelligence comparable to normal humans, allowing them to suppress their instinctive savagery and leave behind the realm of primitive beasts.

However, this discovery also delighted it, because through the power of the Transformation Ritual on its body, it could clearly sense Orsaga's astonishingly potent bloodline power. Even the blood of a Lower Demon might not have been as pure as his.

It must have been because he was mutated. He was the perfect prey to use as a sacrifice!

Sensing the faint hostility leaking from the other party, the smile on Orsaga's face became even happier. Just as he appeared to be excellent prey in the other party's eyes, the Demonized Creature before him was also a rare and exceptional prize in Orsaga's eyes.

The Transformation Ritual on its body was a type of Magic Ritual. In Howling Forest, where there was no way to obtain outside inheritances, it could only have originated from its bloodline memories.

Once activated, it could transform the user's bloodline.

With his powerful soul strength, Orsaga could clearly sense that it contained the essence of power from many demons, as well as refined bloodlines.

Those were things the other party had painstakingly stored away to transform its own bloodline. It wanted to become a mixed-blood Half-Demon in one leap and raise its rank to that of a Lower Demon. To Orsaga, this was undoubtedly a mobile gift package!

Ordinary demons might have been interested in the refined blood it had stored, wanting to absorb it into themselves to purify their own bloodlines. But Orsaga was different. He had no interest in merging those inferior bloodlines into himself. Doing so would only contaminate his own bloodline, offering no benefit whatsoever.

After being strengthened by the system, his bloodline had long surpassed those of demons at the same level.

Therefore, for Orsaga, killing the other party and converting its flesh, its soul, and the bloodlines and power essence stored within its Transformation Ritual into Evolution Points was the proper use.

Given the other party's accumulated resources, the Evolution Points gained from conversion would be at least several times that of an ordinary Lesser Demon. This was a worthwhile deal!

At this moment, both sides felt that fortune had smiled upon them.

As for showing mercy because they were both Sentient Beings?

There was no such possibility. What they wanted most right now was to squeeze out every drop of the other's blood and devour every fragment of the other's soul. Peacefully coexisting while eyeing each other covetously was something that could basically only happen in dreams in the Bottomless Abyss.

After exchanging smiles to show their friendliness, the other party struck first.

The muscles in its hand bulged, its veins seeming ready to burst. It even squeezed a shallow handprint into the hard wooden spear.

The moment the spear was thrown, Orsaga could even hear the sonic boom produced as it broke the sound barrier.

Orsaga was not about to be outdone. He immediately fired three Fire Arrows nearly a meter long.

Boom! Boom!!

In less than the blink of an eye, they collided directly in midair. In a clash of needle against wheat awn, two Fire Arrows exploded, turning into bombs that burned the spear to ashes and formed a rain of fire spanning more than ten meters.

The third Fire Arrow continued onward without being affected, shooting straight toward its target's head!

Faced with Orsaga's triple Fire Arrow barrage, the other party was greatly alarmed. It had never encountered a demon capable of firing three Fire Arrows in an instant. At most, it had seen them fired one after another in succession.

Facing the Fire Arrow that had already reached it, it had no choice but to pull back the spear it had raised and was about to throw.

It knew it could not dodge at this distance, so it covered its entire body in magic power, gripped the shaft of the spear tightly, and thrust with all its strength at the Fire Arrow.

The instant the two met, it felt the Fire Arrow trying to penetrate its magic power. That was the penetrating characteristic of the Fire Arrow spell. Unlike the Fireball Technique, which exploded immediately upon hitting something, Fire Arrow would pierce a certain distance into its target before exploding, producing an armor-piercing effect.

Knowing this characteristic of Fire Arrow, the other party could only forcefully release a burst of magic power to detonate it prematurely, trying to withstand the explosion head-on and avoid greater damage.

But reality proved that it had thought too simply. Accompanied by a Great Explosion, it felt an immense force surge from the other end of the spear, making it shake violently. Even though it gripped it tightly, the weapon nearly flew out of its hand.

Its low level of education prevented it from understanding that this was resonance caused by the violent shaking at the other end of the spear. If it had gripped the spear a little farther up, it could have greatly reduced the effect.

And before it could recover from the explosion—

Its vision went black, and a sudden, agonizing pain erupted in its brain, making it feel as though its brain matter were being stirred to mush. Blood uncontrollably flowed from its eyes, mouth, nostrils, and ears.