novelraw Chapter 548: Traces of Baimon
Chapter 548: Traces of Baimon
"What Erwind... Oh, that madwoman from Schwari? I almost forgot about her."
Hearing Fisher's confusion, Eimhart turned his head slightly, peeking one eye out from the cover of Fisher's palm to look at the mass of flesh Fisher was studying.
He saw that the deformed flesh was continuously extracting the "Fallen Self-Nature" produced by the surrounding sex party. However, these functions weren't the most important part; the most important part was that Fisher sensed the aura of Chaos from this flesh and blood.
In the past, when Fisher hadn't read so many Completion Handbooks and his Rank wasn't this high, he couldn't completely distinguish what the aura of Chaos was. At most, he just felt his scalp tingle upon seeing certain things, sensing the danger of falling into madness.
But today was different from the past. He himself had entered the Mythic Rank by relying on Chaos, and had tangled with Erwind for almost half a year, chasing her all the way from Saint-Nazareth to the Frostwood Sycamore Tree. How could he not recognize the Chaos contained within Life?
"Don't you feel that the methods used by these two Demons are very similar to what Erwind obtained from the Completion Handbook?"
"Hmm, now that you mention it, there really is such a feeling. Regardless, neither of them are anything good."
"Mhm..."
Fisher narrowed his eyes, subconsciously trying to reach for the Fluid Sword in his chest. However, his Soul instantly felt a wisp of lethargy as if being hollowed out. He froze slightly, suddenly recalling that earlier he was so focused on being affectionate with Jasmine that he forgot to let her check what condition the Fluid Sword was in.
He patted his forehead, lamenting that his brain hadn't been clear since entering the Dragon Court, then had no choice but to stomp on the ground, crushing the flesh into pieces."Crack!"
With the mass of flesh erupting and the process of extracting Fallen Self-Nature pausing, there was no prominent change among the Dragon Court residents still copulating with abandon on the floor. This was entirely because the Fallen Self-Nature was produced within their bodies, not bestowed by the Demons. Even stopping the extraction wouldn't eliminate the Fallen Self-Nature within them.
The Demons' extraction process was merely exacerbating its production, acting as a component in a vicious cycle.
"Mhm..."
Scanning the surrounding residents who were still throwing themselves into the party, Fisher decided to move out first. As for the situation here, he could just inform Raphaela later to dispatch people from the Prayer and Blessing Tower to handle it.
Regardless, as long as the thing extracting the Fallen Self-Nature disappeared, after venting their beastly desires, they would slowly wake up and stop on their own. If Fisher interrupted them now, it might instead cause psychological and physiological issues.
"Could it be that Erwind has some connection to the Demons?"
"It's possible."
Fisher suddenly recalled the first time he met Eliog. At that time, she was precisely under orders to hunt down Erwind who had fled to Saint-Nazareth. Back then, he hadn't carefully inquired about what specific crimes Erwind had committed within the Demon Dynasty; perhaps it was related to the situation Fisher was encountering right now.
He stepped past the living beings around him who remained immersed in extreme bliss, leaping up from the ground onto a nearby awning. He glanced around, allowing the gentle breeze to brush his face.
His body slowly began to squirm, as if representing the restlessness of the Soul hidden within his flesh.
Eimhart was startled, but quickly realized that Fisher was using the power of that forbidden knowledge from before.
Originally, Fisher was extremely resistant to the knowledge in these Completion Handbooks, because he didn't want to become like Pherone, Erwind, and the rest. But after all, Fisher would also encounter the difficult problems they once faced. When confronting a difficult problem and having absolutely no other recourse, perhaps he could only rely on such dangerous power to help him achieve his goal.
In this sense, Fisher could actually understand them.
"Glug glug..."
With his true Soul state fully unleashed, Fisher, tainted with Chaos, began searching the entire Dragon Court for the whereabouts of those two fish that escaped the net.
With such a massive aura of Chaos, and given that they were seriously injured, they definitely couldn't have run far.
"Fisher, can't you just use Magic? Do you really have to use this kind of power?"
Eimhart was frightened by his changing body and hurriedly tried to persuade him.
Fisher, while searching for the traces of those Demons and enduring the ravings beginning to permeate his ears again, explained to Eimhart,
"I want to as well, but the higher the Rank, the weaker the effect of Magic."
"Didn't you research some Dual Circle Head Magic previously? It should be able to rival the power of the Mythic Rank..."
"A Dual Circle Head Magic isn't just formed by piecing together the Circle Heads of any two spells. Humans have researched Magic for so many years, yet only my teacher Helson has developed this one and only Dual Circle Head Magic alone. Why do you think that is?"
In the distance, Fisher seemed to catch a whiff of an unusual scent. He turned his head to continue searching for clues, and his words with Eimhart didn't break,
"But this doesn't mean powerful Magic doesn't exist. When you stayed by Gabriel's side, I met a Transferred Person with extremely high magical talent, the very Asuka Karasawa you saw. In the past, her title in the Creator's Society was 'Magic Lord'. When I was in the Ideal State, she was even self-taught enough to link several complex Prime Magics that even I couldn't understand. This proves that besides the 'Killing Dragonspear', there are other Magics rivaling the Mythic Rank; it's just that I haven't discovered them yet..."
"That exaggerated? Shouldn't she be your student?"
"Are students necessarily inferior to their teachers? Furthermore, she's an unparalleled genius rarely seen in ten thousand years. If that's the case, wouldn't it be fine for me simply to never hope to catch up to Teacher Helson for my entire life? What's the point of researching and learning?"
"That makes sense too. But since many, many years ago, even before the Mother Goddess descended, that student of yours mastered such superb magical techniques, why didn't the Mother Goddess teach those to humans when she later imparted Magic, but instead only taught them Magic below the Mythic Rank..."
"And she didn't even teach all the Magic below the Mythic Rank. In the beginning, the Magic humans learned was very primitive and incomplete. Most of the Magic nowadays was researched by humans themselves..."
"Is that so..."
Actually, Fisher might know the answer to Eimhart's question.
He still remembered that during his time in the Sanctuary, he had read the "Source Magic Book: Part One" from the Demi-Human Completion Handbook, which detailed how the Mother Goddess had imparted Magic to humanity at the behest of a friend.
This also meant that the Mother Goddess was not the founder of Magic, and even the content she later imparted was already a second-hand, translated version. This was why it appeared so "primitive".
Based on Asuka Karasawa's magical proficiency, Fisher hypothesized that the "friend" the Mother Goddess spoke of was highly likely none other than the President of the Creator's Society, Asuka Karasawa.
The Mother Goddess had resided in the Spirit World at the time, and Asuka Karasawa actually knew Her. Didn't this also signify that Asuka Karasawa had already traversed through the [Ultimate] of the Spirit World and left this world?
Just as Fisher was conversing with Eimhart, his gaze sharply locked onto a specific location near the coast,
"Found them."
Fisher's body slowly reverted to its original form. He quickly covered Eimhart in his robes again and, accompanied by the sound of rushing wind, headed toward the direction near the coast once more.
Approximately a hundred meters from the Dragon Court coast, inside a shipyard that appeared quite old and seemingly abandoned from the outside, faint sounds of squirming flesh could be faintly heard.
Previously, before the Human Allied Army led by Naris had been defeated at the forefront of the Dragon Court, they had launched an attack from the ocean onto the coastline. This shipyard was among the first batch of places attacked.
After that incident, the Dragon Courts dismantled the original factory site and retreated backward.
"Hurry up, Lilim! I sensed that the blood vessel we left behind was destroyed by someone."
Inside the abandoned factory building, a female voice suddenly sounded. Looking closely, within the dock connecting to the ocean where ships were originally parked, a headless shadow was dragging a circular ship hull into the water.
Behind that shadow, a mass identical to the flesh Fisher had just destroyed was connecting to the figure's tail, continuously transporting Fallen Self-Nature from within.
To Demons, those formless Fallen Self-Natures were akin to pure energy; they were extremely delicious food.
Under the repair of the Fallen Self-Nature, their originally headless bodies surprisingly grew back halfway in an eerie manner. Although the goat horns covered in viscous liquid on their heads appeared tender, they had already begun to take shape.
"I know, Lalam."
Right after that Demon hauling the ship hull, another Demon holding an oar and supplies also revealed herself.
It looked like they were planning to use the left-behind ship hull in this abandoned shipyard to leave the Dragon Court.
"Thanks to Lord Agreas' blessing. If it were ordinary us whose heads were blasted to pieces by a Mythic Rank attack, we wouldn't have survived."
The Demon named "Lalam", who was currently dragging the boat, tossed the hull into the water. Feeling the flesh growing on her head, she spoke with a mix of gratitude and excitement.
"Heh, don't forget, it was precisely Lord Agreas and Lord Barbatos who sent us here to die."
Compared to Lalam, Lilim's expression was exceedingly disdainful. She curled her lip, appearing quite dissatisfied,
"Cocom is as brainless as you. When told to sacrifice herself, she actually indeed just went ahead and died without a word, truly..."
"What does that matter? Even if us attendants die, we'll still resurrect from the Dynasty's 'Magma Pool'. Dead is dead, so what."
"You mean changing your appearance and losing all your memories, as if becoming a new person altogether? You call that resurrection?"
Lilim tossed all the items into the ship's hull in one fell swoop, then leaped onto the boat before her, cursing softly,
"These Demon Gods simply don't care about us at all. They might as well have not awakened. At least back then when I hid in human society, I was much freer..."
"Lilim was in the human nations before? So impressive, I was sleeping the whole time. Where were you again?"
"Naris."
"What were you doing there?"
"Working a job."
"Is there any difference from now?"
"..."
Lilim's half-grown face couldn't even form a complete expression, yet one could still tell she was extremely angry.
It seemed that when she was in Saint-Nazareth, this Demon was also full of disdain for the work she did,
"Are you leaving or not? If you don't go now, I'll definitely leave alone!"
"Leaving, of course I'm leaving."
"Crack!"
But right at this moment, the tightly shut gates of the abandoned shipyard were violently pushed open, revealing a tall figure in a red robe outside the doors.
The very instant the doors were pushed open, Lilim and Lalam instantly felt an intense chill and terror originating from their Souls.
That sensation surged into this confined space like a tidal wave at this very moment, robbing them of their breath and heartbeats entirely.
"Found you."
The man instantly discovered the two Demon Attendants standing beside the dock. He raised his eyebrows, only to find that in the next moment, the two Demons' reactions were completely different.
The expression of the Demon standing on the shore changed; then, despite her fear, she still raised her tail behind her, seemingly prepared to fight Fisher to the death.
Whereas the one on the boat...
Uhh, began rowing the boat without even looking back, frantically attempting to flee from the shipyard.
"For the Demon Dynasty!"
"..."
Facing the Demon lunging over with a battle cry, Fisher's right hand began squirming slowly once more. Looking closely, it was precisely his Soul driving the mutation of his flesh. A dense sense of hunger emanated from his deformed Soul...
"Devoured their Souls!"
Fisher's expression instantly turned cold, as if in this moment, he was that black mud completely unmoved by facing a giant dragon, intending to meaninglessly devour everything to extinction...
But in the next second, he froze slightly, and his deformed arm instantly twisted back, returning to human form. Facing the Demon striking at close distance, he lightly swiped a palm, forcefully smashing her into the ground before him.
"Boom!"
Hearing the loud noise coming from behind, the Demon rowing away trembled all over and rowed even faster, on the verge of reaching the shipyard's exit in the blink of an eye.
But due to long abandonment, the dock's gates simply wouldn't open. Even with the half-faced Demon using all her strength, she couldn't open the sluice gate next to it.
As lower-level existences among Demon Attendants, their ranks were no more than around the Eighth Tier. Though slightly stronger than Little Demons below the Fifth Tier in the Humanoid Tier, to a Mythic Rank like Fisher, there was no difference.
Lilim's half-face was extremely pale, and behind her, dead silence had fallen since that loud crash. This made her terrifyingly eager to investigate what had exactly happened behind her, yet she didn't dare turn her head.
"Need my help?"
In the next instant, the male voice exploding beside her ear plunged her into absolute despair.
She turned her head tremblingly. Sure enough, Fisher had already silently arrived on her boat, carrying the once-again heavily injured Lalam in hand.
Her body shook from fright, and subsequently, she lost all backbone, her entire body going limp as she knelt on the floor.
"Don't, don't, don't, don't kill me... I... I... I'm a Demon from Naris..."
"..."
What the heck is a Demon from Naris?
Fisher didn't understand, so he simply tossed the blood-soaked Lalam down beside her, then stated,
"I'll ask, you'll answer."
"Okay, okay! I'll say everything I know!"
The eye on Lilim's half-face brightened slightly. Following that, she sat properly on the boat, displaying piety akin to a religious convert.
"Lili... m..."
Lalam, lying on the floor, coughed and similarly looked at Lilim with her single eye, saying,
"You... traitor..."
Lilim didn't look at her, only constantly gazing at Fisher ingratiatingly. Simultaneously, she raised an oar placed on the boat's deck with one hand and forcefully smashed it onto her head once.
"Thud!"
With this heavy strike, Lalam instantly lost consciousness, completely motionless.
"Please go ahead, Lord Human, I... I will say everything I know."
Eimhart, staying in Fisher's chest, curled his lip and remarked mockingly,
"As expected of a Demon from Naris. Gotta say, she's even purer than the Demons in the Demon Dynasty."
Fisher narrowed his eyes at Lilim, then proceeded to ask,
"Currently, within Naris' army, how many Mythic Rank Demon-kin exist?"
"Two. Respectively, they are the Chief of Staff, Aga... um, Agreas, and the General, Barbatos."
It seemed Fisher's previous guess was correct; two Demon-kin had truly awakened. Fortunately, only two Demons had awakened. If there were more, he really wouldn't be able to handle it.
"How did they awaken?"
"I... I don't know either. A very, very long time ago, the Demon Gods were all locked within the Dynasty. Since emerging from the Dynasty's pool of fire upon my birth, I've been wandering the human world. Of course, there are also quite a few Demon Attendants and Little Demons who stayed by the pool of fire..."
Lilim swallowed a mouthful of saliva and explained to Fisher,
"Previously, I had been lying dormant in human nations like Naris and Schwari, living for several hundred years, constantly moving across different places. Occasionally went to work, inhaled a tiny, tiny bit of Fallen Self-Nature to get by..."
"But then... mhm, four years ago, a decree from the Demon Gods suddenly issued from the Dynasty. Against the powerful Demon Gods, we simply didn't have the strength to resist, so we could only obey the summons and return to the Demon Dynasty..."
"For some unknown reason, Lord Agreas and Lord Barbatos, the two Demon Gods, awakened from their bindings. They gathered the majority of the Demon Attendants to return to the surface. However, they neither attacked other races nor went to absorb Fallen Self-Nature. Instead, they laid low, infiltrating Naris' army, until today..."
It seemed that even the Demon Attendants didn't know what their bosses were trying to do.
Fisher pondered for a moment before changing to another question,
"You said earlier that you bear the blessing of that 'Agreas'. Is it related to that flesh and blood?"
"Yes, yes. If not for Agreas' blessing, we would have already died when our heads were blasted apart. How could we have survived till now."
Lilim touched the half-face still hanging on her head and said,
"Demon God Agreas' power is very strange, making us feel terrified. Not only can she modify the appearance and properties of other creatures, but she can also use flesh and blood to create weapons and new creatures; possessing the ability to create worlds..."
"Legend has it that Demon God Agreas is immortal, and she also guards the secrets of death and life. In ancient times, simply summoning her could satisfy wishes, capable of granting you the powerful strength of other races..."
The more Fisher listened, the more he felt this Demon God's power was exceptionally similar to Erwind's.
Modifying biological appearance and properties—it sounded like a perfect match with those creations Erwind crafted back in Naris.
Human-Insects and Project Fleshgraft...
Could it be that Agreas sent Eliog to hunt down Erwind for a specific reason?
Perhaps Erwind had done something while these Demon-kin were slumbering, to the extent that Agreas forced Eliog's soul to leave her body and travel ten thousand miles just to hunt her down.
Fisher asked a few more questions concerning the abilities of Agreas and Barbatos, but the answers he finally received were extremely ambiguous.
In the mouths of low-level Demon Attendants like them, these Eighteenth Tier Demon Gods were as mighty and omnipotent as the Mother Goddess.
Aside from various clichéd, powerful embellishments, Fisher still managed to discover some information about the abilities of these two Demon Gods.
Agreas' abilities seemed related to flesh and blood, capable of creating living constructs. She also carried a large black bird with her, which seemed to possess the ability to foresee the future...
In summary, she was more akin to an Erwind whose abilities had grown countless times stronger?
As for the other one, Barbatos, he excelled at archery. His arrows couldn't be dodged, he could control all the fierce winds in the world, and he also had the ability to use those fierce winds to gather intelligence.
Incidentally, he could converse with non-sentient animals, and could even place the souls of sinners into animals to undergo interrogation...
It was roughly these; Fisher couldn't extract anything else. However, Fisher was certain that the power of Eighteenth Tier Demon-kin far exceeded this.
"That... that's all, Lord Human... Could you please let me go now?"
Lilim spoke a huge amount in one breath; her exposed tongue and its root were about to run dry. She looked incredibly pitiful.
Fisher glanced at her sideways, asking one final thing,
"One last question: Do you know the whereabouts of Demon God Baimon?"
"Baimon?"
Lilim froze slightly, while Eimhart "hid whenever he encountered Baimon"; merely hearing the first syllable was too much for him.
Lilim chewed over this word, then suddenly, her single eye lit up as she excitedly said to Fisher,
"I... I remember now, Lord Human, I know!"
Fisher raised an eyebrow, his heartbeat involuntarily quickening at the thought of discovering Helaire's whereabouts.
He couldn't help but take a step forward, drawing closer to Lilim, and asked,
"Where is she? In Naris' army, or..."
Lilim proactively leaned in, softly replying to Fisher,
"Baimon... Demon God Baimon, Demon God she..."
Her excited, somewhat flustered reply transformed in the next second, turning into an extremely teasing and gentle, sultry voice,
"She is right here, darling~"
That sultry voice rang out crisply. At this moment, Lilim's voice seemed to have become the playful whispers of that wicked Angel.
He didn't know if it was an illusion, but he felt as if, beyond his field of vision in the murky darkness, some presence gently kissed his cheek.
Was it this Lilim with only half a face?
Or someone else entirely?
It was just that at this moment, the senses of the Mythic Rank Fisher were actually so blurred. Perhaps he shouldn't be blamed, for his body began squirming irregularly again, and the chaotic ravings echoed in his ears once more.
Except, these myriad ravings were far inferior to that single sultry voice.
Fisher's pupils constricted; in this instant, his brain seemed to be pierced by that voice, frozen foolishly in place.