Horns, tails, wings … Every part that made them 'demons' to the eyes of others, was quickly disappearing from the bodies of these demon lords along with the ability to produce demonic power, and the innate abilities that they possessed. There was no need to say, that the proces was not a quiet and peaceful one.
Tens of thousands of years spent as rulers of demonic legions, factios, and even families. Spent considering humans their strongest and most hated enemies.. All gone to waste. Their demonic bodies were de-evolving into those of their forefathers, and their cultivation stages were pushued back down to a point where spirit and body were not merged.. The peak of the ninth rank of spiritual cultivation, and the peak of the ninth rank of martial cultivation.
However, the dark essence emanated by the stone was not stopping at that.
While what was left of their cultivation after going back to being human state was not being assorbed, both of the reserves of their powers were, leaving them completely drained of any either of them.
Even when left with no power, these rays of darkness kept shrouding their bodies, only stopping after Daniel grabbed the little wolf by the scruff, and separated it from the stone. He then put him in his arms, and stroked his black fur to help him calm down.
The demon lords, who now were nothing but human cultivators of the lowest level, were looking at their bodies with something that could barely be described as shock. They were feeling a weakness they had long forgotten, and even bearing hell's temperature was difficult to them.
"NOOO!!" Screamed a man that happened to be standing next to the transformed parasite king, and above a massive golden sceptre. He could not feel that pleasant sense of schadenfreude that was born out of growing in power while others suffered.
In the course of the many millennia, the idea that billions had died a painful death just so that he could become one of the strongest, had slowly changed him. From initially being a way to satisfy his sadism, it became an obsession.. And now, it had turned into the reason that justified why he was above all else. After all, anyone could cultivate or kill.. But people suffered all kinds of pain, and even died for him … In his mind, there wasn't a nobler death or greater honor.
Now, however, he was but a normal human.
"WHAT DID YOU DO?! TURN IT BACK!!" He shouted with anger and indignation, which was met by two metallic needles that pierced his forehead and his heart. He then fell backwards, dying before his back could even touch the ground.
The same fate fell upon most of the demon lords who had been turned into humans, and the person who had killed them in front of the eyes of the shocked parasite king, and the six remaining demon lords, was Daniel.
After killing these ten demon lords, Daniel turned to look at Lady Night, who was now nothing but a beautiful woman who stood on the battlefield, and seemed not to care about the fact that she was naked in front of everyone else. She was currently looking at the massive stone, almost as if thinking about what it was, could distract her from the thought of having lost all of her powers.
"Why did you kill them, and not us?" She said, before slowly turning her head towards Daniel.
Daniel casually stuffed a dark essence sphere into the mouth of the wolf cub, then responded by saying, "I know some of you knew that hell was not a place fit to be inhabited permanently. You wanted to make a space for your people in the universe, and I can respect that."
For a few moments, Lady Night thought about Daniel said.. quickly realizing that he had never truly picked a side, nor aided a specific line-up due to some sort of payment or loyalty. He was here because her faction had helped in kidnapping him and his friends, and he needed the help of some powerful individuals to save them. However, that response only created more questions in the mind of Lady Night. "I understand. But some of those you have killed had our same reason.. why-"
Before she could finish asking her question, Daniel cut her off by saying, "Motivation is not always enough to justify one's wrongdoings. Do you want to know why I haven't spared them as well? As yourself if they deserved that."
This answer struck deeply into the woman's mind, helping her remember a few details of the demons she had known for the past fifty thousand years. No matter how long she dug into her memories, she could only think of two things that these deceased demons had in common.. And those things, were malice and brutality.
Her interest in this human quickly began to grow, to a point where she tried to remember everything that she knew, or was said about him in order to piece them together, and have a clearer understanding of what kind of person Daniel was. It was only after a few seconds that her jaw shut tight, and her brows arched in surprise.
"You don't control luck, do you?" She asked with a faint tone, before adding, You control-"
Her sentence was cut off by Daniel once again, who said "It isn't too late for me to kill you."
Lady Night immediately snapped back to reality, realizing that she was about to expose, if her hypothesys was correct, the biggest secret of a chosen of Iewah. That was not only a stupid idea, but also a suicide. "I understand.. Thank you for sparing my life." She added before using her low level of spiritual cultivation to form a few pieces of clothing that could cover the most intimate parts of her body. She appeared to be the most comfortable while in the skin of a human, as she was used to turn into one when she still possessed her shapeshifting abilities.
Daniel nodded casually before turning to look at the six demon lords, amongst which was the leader of the faction of beastmasters, and while pointing his arm at the direction of the Parasite King, he said "I took all of your enemies out. It is time to repay the favor."
The demon lords turned to look at the Parasite King, but did not attack. Instead, one of them turned to look at Daniel, and asked "You had something to gain from what you did.. Why should we become enemies with the universal government in order to do you a favor?"
"Is that what you all feel?" Asked Daniel, completely unfazed about this response. His eyes landed on the leader of the beastmasters, and the lupa that followed him. At the same time, in fear that these demon lords would attack him, the parasite lord ran away with the highest amount of speed he was capable of.
At the end of the day, the main focus of these demon lords was to keep their kind away from danger, and while Daniel's request seemed reasonable, it actually carried a massive weight on their shoulders. After all, if word got out that they had killed a human, they would be forced to shut themselves in hell, or face the universal government's wrath.
"You ask too much." Said the old demon, leader of the beastmaster faction.
Naturally, Daniel would have done anything in his power to protect hell and its inhabitants in case they would have granted his requet, he simply wanted to see if, in their eyes, he was someone worth befriending.
After listening to their answer, Daniel shrugged his shoulder, and said, "Figured so.." He then placed the cub back onto the stone, and after showing a dark essence sphere to it, and forming a depiction of the parasite king with constructed metal, he added "Take him, fix hell's space, and I'll give this to you."
The wolf cub looked at the essence sphere attentively. A string of saliva could be seen hanging from his mouth, and his eyes would not budge from it.. Soon after, every form of light in hell disappeared. Every individual in hell found themselves alone within a world of darkness, unable to see anything, or anyone that was around them.
One of these individuals was the Parasite Lord, who calmly observed his dark surroundings. At the same time, he could feel his essence being pulled out of his body, and absorbed the moment it would leave the surface of his skin. To him, it felt as if someone with a cultivation uncomparable to his, was using the essence of darkness to absorb every drop of his power.
Despite the situation was grim, he appeared to be relatively calm.. Almost as if the consequences of dying were of no importance to him. His previous animosity towards Daniel was caused by the idea of him growing more powerful in the future, while also being a mortal enemy of his, but he had never been truly scared for his life at no point in the previous fight.
After every bit of his power was absorbed, the darkness dissipated, and the light brightened the world once again.
The Parasite Lord looked at his body, and quickly found out that nothing but his immortal essence was missing. Unfortunately, Daniel had already quietly appeared behind him.
Before the parasite lord could notice him, Daniel placed his hand on the man's head in order to use his powerful cultivation to erase his consciousness, when suddenly, something unexpected happened.
The moment Daniel tried to erase the consciousness of the parasite lord, instead of resisting long enough for him to use his powerful body to attack Daniel, his consciousness burned ten times faster than that of any human … As soon as that happened, his physical body flaked into millions of insects and worms that crawled away in random directions.
On Daniel's face was an expression of anger. It had all dawned upon him, right when he had found no obstacle in killing him.. This body was not the parasite lord's real body, but some sort of clone he had created, and inside which he had left a small portion of his consciousness and spirit.
What made Daniel cross out the idea that this body was a puppet, was the fact that they were in a different dimension. It shouldn't have been possible for the Parasite Lord to control this body unless it was an actual independent clone.
Annoyed by not being able to finish this enemy off, Daniel teleported back to hell's core, where the leader of the beastmaster faction was standing in front of the stone's barrier, and slapping his legs in an attempt to get the wolf cub to come to him.. Unfortunately, the wolf remained on the stone, while munching on the dark essence sphere that Daniel had given to him.
As soon as Daniel appeared, he looked at the wolf cub, and opened his arms, causing the cub to immediately jump on them, and make himself comfortable.
Both the Lupa and the old demon did not take this action well, and looked at Daniel with suspicion. If the barrier was not there, the lupa would have already attacked him in order to retrieve her son. Luckily for Daniel, the two had no way of moving through the barrier.
Their angered expression were replaced by curiosity, the moment one of the other demons said "What is that stone? How did you know how it works?"
Daniel turned to look at this demon, and said, "It appears that your scholars weren't that far off when they renamed this place hell's core, and the same can be said about the legends which surrounded this object.. An object that allows to control hell, left here by the person who created it, as a legacy."
These few words were enough to furtherly shock everyone present.. Be it the demon lords who had been turned into humans, the six demon lords left, or the historical keeper, which had recorded the battle the moment it had started, and had come back as soon as it had ended.
In the minds of these cultivators appeared a thousand questions. Who had created hell? Was dark essence all that was required to use the sphere? Was hell just a massive pocket dimension, or was it a training ground for humans to become demons?
After a long minute spent deep in their thoughts, Daniel broke the silence by saying "The person who created hell is crearly powerful beyond comprehension.. Powerful to a point where fifty thousand years might be a short vacation for him.. He clearly set this place as a test."
"What do you mean?" Asked the historical keeper while holding his book, and eagerly writing every bit of information on it.
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