The moment the words left my mouth, my own mind was still blank. But I'd already blurted out everything I wanted to say.
"Help me kill a spirit, and I'll let you go." As I spoke, a sliver of power leaked from my body.
That tiny amount was enough to make the demon before me reveal a hideous, terrifying face.
The surroundings changed along with it.
I knew the tree had withered into ash. Beneath my feet, the earth cracked open, and red magma glowed from within.
The sky turned red, too.
The person who had come in with the demon dropped straight into a fissure in the ground. He vanished without even managing to scream.
The demon's expression grew even more vicious and cruel. Its crimson eyes fixed on me, filled with murderous intent.
But it didn't struggle.
"Do you understand now?" I asked.
I was sure the demon had felt my power.
Small monsters crawled out of the fissures in the ground, chittering as they glared at me.
A sudden flash of insight made me understand. These little monsters were the souls the demon had harvested. They had been tortured and trapped inside the tree, their consciousness gradually worn away until they became the very little monsters that had once tormented their souls. Besides tormenting people's souls, these little monsters were also the elements that made up this hell.
No wonder I'd lost control of myself when I possessed Zhao Qiang.
The souls harvested by the demon could no longer be considered ordinary souls.
My thoughts stopped there.
I had traveled to a point in time before Zhao Qiang encountered the demon. Yet from the very beginning of this dream, I hadn't had a clear sense of self.
Could the demon's power affect the past, too?
Thinking it