Volume 5, Chapter 41 – The Other Side

“Bastard! Bastard!!”

In the dark of the night, within the tent, a gaunt man with prominent cheekbones and sunken eyes, as if his body had been drained by wine and women, was roaring. The tent’s carpet was littered with scattered paper, pens, and maps. A half-toppled wine cup was still gurgling out its contents, clearly having just been pushed to the ground by the angry man.

“Who the hell was it! Who has such ability!”

The man was still roaring. He glanced at the handsome man lying face up on the ground, only breathing out, not in. This man, who had once been the Demon General of Lust, was now motionless, like a corpse.

Because of his death, Chazo’s perfect plan had been ruined.

His two armies each had a role. The thirty thousand soldiers led by the Demon General of Lust were responsible for attracting the attention of the Holy Son Faction, making them misjudge the situation and focus their defenses on the north. In this way, he could lead his powerful elites to launch a surprise attack from the south. Under a pincer attack, even if the Holy Son was enhanced by a divine weapon and was more troublesome than an ordinary Seventh-Tier individual, he was confident that he could crush them with the help of the Demon General of Absolute Death.

The Demon General of Absolute Death was extremely popular among the Demon Generals. If he couldn’t defeat the Holy Son alone, he could still call a group to gang up on her. Besides, no matter what, he was a high-ranking Demon General who could even contend with Helian. Even without a body, Chazo didn’t think he would lose.

The real one dragging him down was himself. This body was too fragile to withstand his full power. Otherwise, without so many tricks, he could have just rushed in with the Demon General and killed the Holy Son, and everything would have been over.

However, today, the Demon General of Lust, who was responsible for communication, had died before his and the Demon General of Absolute Death’s eyes. He had not been killed physically, but his soul had been burned to ashes. Because the burning speed was too fast, even the Demon General of Absolute Death could not extinguish it in time. The Demon General of Lust, who had been born less than two months ago, had thus become history. Lying here was just an empty shell with only basic physiological reactions.

“No one wanted this to happen. Calm down, my old friend.”

The gem necklace hanging on Chazo’s neck flickered slightly as the Demon General of Absolute Death calmly analyzed.

“A spell that can directly attack the soul is rare, and one that can kill Lust is even rarer. The opponent burned him to death before my [Spatial Jump] could activate. It’s very likely a Seventh-Tier magic caster, or Lust fell into a trap and was tricked by a Sixth-Tier magic caster.”

“Then what do you suggest we do now? Without him, how can we contact the northern army?”

In the end, they didn’t even know the situation of the northern army now. Since the enemy was at least at the Sixth Tier, it was difficult to predict how much combat power the thirty-thousand-strong army had left.

A Sixth-Tier powerhouse was neither weak nor strong. If it were an assassin-type or warrior-type, the army of thirty thousand could still run if they couldn’t win. Those fifty War Behemoths could hold them off for a long time. No matter how strong a Sixth-Tier powerhouse was, they were still only one person. If fifty War Behemoths were to charge the city and slaughter at will, even if the powerhouse wanted to pursue the army, they would have to consider the casualties on their side.

But if it were a sixth-tier magic caster who had mastered wide-area annihilation magic, the outcome would be entirely different. The lethality of a high-tier magic caster against ordinary people is almost beyond imagination. With proper spell coordination, even if wiping out all thirty thousand were unrealistic, they could still barely take out ten thousand.

It was precisely because he didn’t know the enemy’s details that Chazo was so restless. Who had killed the Demon General of Lust? Why would they kill him when he was so well-disguised? How had the two sides met? Were they the Holy Son? All sorts of questions swirled in his mind. He knew the importance of intelligence in war, so when his side was in a state of complete ignorance, he felt the frustration of being a headless fly, the helplessness of just bumping around, and an unventable anger that rushed from his feet to his brain.

If that wasn’t a Sixth-Tier, but a Seventh-Tier powerhouse, then his side was in trouble. He was supposed to be the hunter who had set the trap. Victory was even in sight, and the Holy Son Faction was a turtle in a jar. Now, to be suddenly thrown into disarray was the worst possible situation.

Impatience rose in his heart, but he knew that getting angry at the Demon General was useless.

As a monarch, controlling one’s emotions was a necessary ability. He had no choice but to suppress his anger and ask in a deep voice.

“Do you have a way to investigate who killed him? You said that the most suitable vessel for you is that Holy Son. If the plan fails, who knows how long this will be delayed.”

“Of course I know. If you ask me, the fastest way is for you and I to fly over and take a look. Lust’s last report was before he reached the Snake-folk city. To fly from here to there, with my speed, it would take at most three days. But do you have the guts for that?”

“What if they deliberately left those thirty thousand as bait and set an ambush for us? Wouldn’t we be walking right into their trap? In my opinion, we should just follow the original plan. I’ll contact my brothers in advance and have them help me investigate. But I have to say this first: you’d better not count on those thirty thousand soldiers anymore. Without a high-tier powerhouse to lead them, you beastfolk are vulnerable. That was originally a bait to attract the Holy Son’s attention. When it’s time to give up, you should give up.”

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“…I know.”

To calm his chaotic thoughts, Chazo took a deep breath. The truth was as the Demon General had said. Even without the thirty thousand soldiers used to attract the Holy Son Faction’s attention, they could still break through their defensive line with just the current elite army. The reason for the pincer attack was simply for insurance and to reduce the casualties of the elites.

Originally, although the relationship between the Holy Son Faction and the Royalist Faction was bad, it hadn’t reached the point of drawing swords. Now that he had started this, if he didn’t severely damage the Holy Son Faction, it would be a bad move. The arrow was on the bowstring and had to be fired.

He looked down at the Demon General of Lust again.

“What do you plan to do with him? With his soul gone, not even a resurrection spell can bring him back.”

“I can borrow his body for a while. Although the compatibility is not good, it should be fine for a short period. His body is stronger than yours. Even if we do encounter a strong enemy, I can use his body to exert greater power.”

“Then what if the Holy Son ambushes me while you’re in his body?”

Chazo’s own strength was only at the Third Tier. If the Holy Son were to attack, and the Demon General happened to not be by his side, he would surely be beheaded by Nola with a single sword strike.

The Demon General of Absolute Death let out a hearty laugh.

“My soul is stored in the necklace. The moment I sense you’re in danger, I can return in an instant. You and I are one. What is there to worry about?”

One body is true, but one mind is hard to say.

Chazo answered in his heart. He hesitated for a moment and used a euphemism.

“Haven’t you been hiding something from me all this time? In a while, we’ll reach the Fire Cat’s main camp. It’s time to tell me what this ‘grand plan’ you and the other Demon Generals have been talking about is, right?”

“Well…”

The necklace that stored the Demon General’s soul dimmed, which meant he was deep in thought. After a full half a minute, he finally began to speak in a distant tone.

This tone was so different from before, containing an extremely strong curiosity and the emotion of sincere thought, that Chazo temporarily forgot his anxiety and sat down in a chair to listen seriously. With different levels of power came completely different levels of thinking. As a king, he had long since moved past low-level pleasures like fine wine and beautiful women. Instead, he was extremely interested in the history of the continent and desperately wanted to see a god, a legendary supreme being, believing that only a god was worthy of his reverence.

“Since you’re so concerned, at this point, I won’t keep you in suspense any longer. My old friend, we living beings originally lived on that wide and fertile land below. The gods at that time were actually not that different from us Darkborn. They were only able to suppress us because they were born into this world earlier and had accumulated more magic power.”

“You mean, a god is just a stronger Darkborn? If you had been born first, there would be no gods?”

“No, there is still a fundamental difference. Our life form is closer to yours. The ‘yours’ here does not only refer to beastfolk, but also humans, elves, dragons, and most of the life on the World Tree Continent. The difference in our physical structure is even greater than the difference between humans and dragons. Let me give you an example. If a Third-Tier person uses up all their magic power, they can recover it in at most a day. This is also true for Seventh and Eighth-Tier people. The speed of recovery to peak will not slow down because of a high tier.”

“But a god is not like that. They lose a little of their magic power with every use. If a god exhausts all of their magic, it will take at least tens of thousands of years to recover to their original peak. Not only that, but they cannot produce offspring. Once they die, their information will disappear forever. But we are different. We can pass on the proof of our existence and our excellent inheritance through our offspring. Undoubtedly, they are low-level, and we are high-level. It was precisely because the gods had realized this crisis that they roped in you, who were born after us, gave you boons, and had you fight against us.”

“We believed in the wrong gods? Why didn’t you say this earlier?”

Chazo did not doubt him. Although he revered the gods, he was not a devout believer. Having reached the position of king, it was already difficult to have a devout faith in anything. A king must always believe in himself, not in something illusory that he has never seen, not to mention a god had chosen a Holy Son on his opponent’s side.

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The Demon General of Absolute Death let out a long sigh. If he had a body, he would surely be shaking his head in frustration now.

“You are ignorant and backward and need faith to guide you. And you know my master’s personality. Someone who only pursues their own pleasure is not suitable to be a leader, unless his subordinates are also a group of lunatics. You humans, beastfolk, and elves are individually weak and must unite to survive. So what you need is stability. The gods are naturally good at this. They know how to tempt you. If I had not told you this news at this point, but when we first met, you would have surely thought I was a madman, a demon, deliberately trying to lead you astray, and thus refused to cooperate with me. Am I right? Although I am indeed a demon.”

Chazo was stunned for a long time, unable to say a word of refutation. He was right. If they had not established a relationship of trust, he would have surely thought this Darkborn was trying to lead him astray, with the purpose of deceiving him into believing in them.

He suppressed the wavering in his heart from showing on his face and let out a grunt-like sound.

“Then you mean, we, who have been used by the gods, should forsake the darkness and turn to the light, and believe in you Darkborn?”

“Not at all.”

The Demon General of Absolute Death refuted him without a second thought.

“I mean to say, you never had to get involved in this whole thing from the beginning. Neither we Absolute Evils nor the Sovereign on the other side have ever seriously thought about wiping out your races. Otherwise, the situation on the World Tree Continent would not be as it is today. Your life form is above ours. Both your growth speed and your magic power recovery speed are much better than ours. You can adapt to a more complex and ever-changing environment. You should believe in yourselves, not in the gods or us.”

“However, this is just my personal opinion. I have no way of knowing if the other Darkborn think the same. Don’t be surprised at my outsider’s tone. When you get old, your perspective of the world will slowly change. When you’ve lived for a thousand years like me, known the past of the World Tree Continent, and watched the people here slowly change, you will, like me, lament and admit your own backwardness and lowliness.”

Incomprehensible.

Chazo answered in his heart. The shrewd and conceited him would never admit that others were superior to him. There were indeed people who were better than him in certain aspects, but there would never be someone who was better than him in all aspects. Therefore, he would not think of himself as inferior with the mentality of a subordinate. This was a thought that had guided him his entire life.

He didn’t want to continue on this issue, so he brought the topic back to the beginning.

“You’ve said so much. What does it have to do with that ‘grand plan’?”

“The gods are dead.”

Chazo thought he had misheard. His eyes instantly widened to the size of copper bells, and he almost jumped from his chair.

“What? Say that again?”

The Demon General of Absolute Death in the necklace slowly repeated.

“The gods are dead.”

“How is that possible,” because it was too incredible, Chazo couldn’t help but laugh out loud, thinking he was just joking. He said teasingly, “Even if they’re dead, it’s just a very few of them. Otherwise, what about the Elf God you mentioned? Didn’t you also say that the gods are the ones who maintain the world’s order, and without them, it would collapse on its own?”

“The Elf God is not dead because he benefited from a disaster and was sealed away from the world. As for your second question, I have no answer either. The gods did indeed say that they were the cornerstone of the world’s order, and if all of them were to die, the world would collapse. But who knows if that’s true?”

“It has been too long since we fled from the original continent to the World Tree Continent. Tens of thousands of years. They should have appeared in the world long ago. The White Night Goddess, the Polar Night Goddess, the Goddess of Life, and all the others, I have never seen them. Where did they go? Don’t you find it strange? The answer is either that they have abandoned this place and gone to another world, or that they have long since died and deceived everyone. The world actually doesn’t need them to maintain order at all. I must find out.”

The Demon General’s words were consistent and laid out plainly before him. And it was precisely because of this rigor that it brought him a great shock. He felt a hint of fear for no reason, as if something in his heart had been dug out, leaving him empty. A sense of being lost, of drifting alone in the vast sea, enveloped his entire body and swallowed him whole, making his legs go weak and unable to stand firm. Even his hands on the armrests were trembling slightly.

—They, who believed in the gods, had actually been abandoned by them.

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He, Chazo, did not believe in the gods, but the reason the living beings on the World Tree Continent could live peacefully every day was not because of how many boons the gods had given them, but because the existence of a god itself was a reassurance, giving them faith and spiritual sustenance. When disaster struck, they would always think that a god would save them. So, even though the Darkborn, a race that could bring them a calamitous disaster, lived with them on the same continent, they did not worry unnecessarily. They believed they had someone to rely on.

However, now to be suddenly told that the gods had actually long been dead, and that they had been believing in something that didn’t exist, and yet had foolishly regarded it as their last safe harbor, a strong sense of loss and the collapse of faith made it impossible for Chazo to calm down. He subconsciously wanted to find a new lifeline, a new god.

As if seeing his wavering, the Demon General of Absolute Death comforted him like a friend.

“You don’t have to worry either. When you get used to a life without gods, you’ll feel how ridiculous your current restlessness is. Besides, this is just a guess of mine. There are still many places that are not self-consistent. Calm down.”

For the last few words, he used a calming spell to settle Chazo’s restless and panicked heart.

Only then did Chazo stabilize his flustered emotions. He was now drenched in sweat and had to wipe his forehead with his sleeve before he could force a pale smile.

“Ah… ahh… that’s true. Anyway, I’ve lived for so many years without seeing a god. It doesn’t matter if they’re there in the future or not. In fact, it’s a great help to me if there are no gods—”

At this, he suddenly realized the loophole in what the Demon General had said. He frowned and, as if he were standing right in front of him, looked at the empty space and asked in confusion.

“Since the gods are either all dead or have gone to another world, then who is sending the oracles to the church? And how did the Holy Sons come to be?”

“Your question is precisely my question. So I have prepared my plan. That Holy Son Nola was favored by the goddess in the Weeping Mountains. I once entrusted Gluttony and Knowledge to investigate there, but they both returned empty-handed. There are many powerful monsters in there, but no gods, let alone miracles. I think either Nola happened to pick up a divine weapon and declared herself a Holy Son, or the gods are very well hidden and they couldn’t find them. No matter the answer, we should give it a try.”

“How do we try?”

Chazo finally got to the core of the matter. The Demon General of Absolute Death sneered.

“Since they’re hiding in the Weeping Mountains and are unwilling to come out, then let’s think of a way to force them to show themselves, and then ask them what happened.”

“Force a god to show themselves? You’re too fanciful.”

Chazo scoffed without a second thought. The Demon General couldn’t even defeat Helian. How could he, in his semi-crippled state, force a god to show themselves.

However, the Demon General in the necklace became triumphant. He twirled his non-existent beard.

“Just because I can’t do it doesn’t mean others can’t. You just watch. This problem has troubled me for hundreds of years. Now, it’s finally time to see the answer. Maybe after this is over, I will disappear from this world, but I am content. My old friend, if that day really comes, you’ll be on your own from now on.”

“Don’t say such discouraging things. You’d better not die before me.”

Even the life-loving Chazo couldn’t help but be moved at this moment. This sentence was not only for his future, but also a heartfelt plea for the Demon General to stay.

The two were silent for a long time.

In the end, it was the Demon General who spoke first. He said with a dry laugh.

“I’m just talking about the worst-case scenario. It doesn’t necessarily have to be like that. Although you’re selfish, we’ve been together for so long and have developed some feelings. I still want to live to see the day you’re buried. Don’t be a sissy like a woman. Cheer up. My plan can be put aside for now. The top priority is your business. After we defeat the Holy Son, I must ask her which god favored her and what she looks like. If the answer matches what I know, then we won’t need to experiment. It means the gods are just not coming out for some reason and have not disappeared.”

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“Also, I hope that after you’ve secured your throne, you can pass on what I told you before as an ancestral instruction. We are superior to the gods. You should believe in yourselves.”

Chazo pouted nonchalantly.

“These things are too far away.”

“That’s true.”

The Demon General of Absolute Death was noncommittal. He used his thoughts to signal Chazo to look at the Demon General of Lust lying at his feet.

“It’s just a pity that we don’t know who killed Lust. If I hadn’t asked him what happened and had just teleported, my youngest junior might not have become like this. And Lord Absolute Evil, to hastily choose a person and then disappear, who knows where he went. If he had helped us, he could have had a great battle with his most anticipated old enemy. That would surely have been another earth-shattering, decisive battle that forced the gods to descend with a miracle… I really look forward to it.”

At the end, his voice was filled with a distant longing.

However, Chazo did not wish for that at all, because if there was a final battle, his Cold Night would surely not fare well. So he just twitched his facial muscles and sneered.

“Don’t jinx me. I still want to live a few more years.”

“Haha, if the gods really come out, do you think you’ll have a good time? I thought you had already thought of that.”

“It’s not that I didn’t think of it, but that I can’t stop you. You Demon Generals are not afraid of death for your own persistence. Can I still expect you to hold back your curiosity for me and wait until I’m dead to look for the gods? Since I accepted your power, I naturally have to pay the price and take this bet. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to get through this on my own.”

The Demon General of Absolute Death was silent for a moment.

“…If you ask me, it’s not impossible for me to agree. I’m old. I don’t have the arrogance and impatience I had when I was young. Waiting a few more decades is nothing to me.”

“But I don’t want to live my whole life feeling indebted to you. That way, I can’t be a king in peace. Besides, the gods are not necessarily hidden in the Weeping Mountains. To not appear for ten thousand years is indeed very strange.”

Chazo smacked his lips. Although he was quite indecisive due to the cowardly part of his personality, he didn’t like to be a sissy on this kind of issue.

“Then let me give you one more piece of advice. After you’ve defeated the Holy Son and secured your throne, don’t continue to hunt down those Tiger-kin. If you commit too many sins, be careful that the queen of the Land of the Dead doesn’t let you step into the world of the living.”

“If killing too many people would be punished, then a good person would have long become a centenarian saint, and a bad person would have died on the street the moment they killed someone. Unfortunately, the facts are just the opposite. Bad people often live longer than good people. So I don’t want to be a good person.”

“As expected of you.”

The Demon General of Absolute Death was full of sarcasm. Then he paused for a moment, his tone becoming serious.

“I’m going to transfer to Lust’s body. You watch outside and don’t let anyone in. I have to prepare well. I must get something out of the Holy Son’s mouth.”

“Hm.”

Without saying more, Chazo just nodded slowly. He squatted down and placed the necklace on the Demon General of Lust’s chest, then slowly walked out of the tent.