Chapter 36: The Hope of Demons
Just as the war around the Mycroft World began, within the Sixth Abyss, the Sea of Flame Hell.
In the deepest hall of the Valley of Tears Fortress, the Shadow King sat upon his throne, silently gazing at the flame in his hand.
It was a cluster of blazing white fire, burning silently, relying on neither air nor fuel. This flame seemed to arise from nothing, continuously generating holy power from the void. The pitch-black Demon King held this fire in his palm, and one could see that the moment the dark energy of his hand touched the white flame, it was like boiling oil meeting water—countless black smoke and white mist erupted from the point of contact, filling the entire hall.
If any Ultimate-rank High Priest of the Church of the Seven Gods were present, they would surely be shocked beyond measure, for this was the completed form of the Church's supreme secret divine art, the 'Undying Holy Flame'—this white flame appeared fragile, but was in truth connected to the void, capable of burning forever. Any chaotic or evil being struck by it would be scorched for eternity, until they sincerely repented or were utterly purified.
But now, the Demon King of the Sixth Abyss, Abyss Lord Goliath, held such a holy flame, lost in thought. Though it seemed to be staring at the fire in its hand, its mind had already drifted back to a distant past.
It was a time long, long ago, so long ago that it was not yet a demon, not yet the lord of the Sixth Abyss, not yet the King of All Demons who commanded countless fiends.
Back then, the Gluttony Demon King was merely an Abyss Worm awakened near the ruins of an ancient insectoid civilization.
Cold acid rain pounded against the roof of an ancient laboratory exposed from the mountain depths by erosion. As the energy circulation that had sustained it for millennia finally collapsed due to broken circuits, the ancient laboratory was forced to end its silent state and once again open its doors, sealed for an entire era. Deep within the laboratory, a long-sealed hibernation pod opened, and within it, an experimental insectoid slowly straightened its body. It opened its eyes, looked around, and gazed upon a world that had already been thousands of years removed from its original time.
And at that moment, an Abyss Worm crawled in through the broken door. It burrowed into the laboratory and lunged at what might have been the last normal insectoid in the world, biting through its throat while the creature was still too sluggish from hibernation to move.
Green blood splattered. The sounds of swallowing raw flesh and devouring organs could be heard.
That was Goliath's first time devouring the soul of a complete intelligent life form, and also the first time it conceived the concept of 'self.'
It was also its first time devouring a 'kin.'
The vast majority of demons are nothing more than survivors of civilizations destroyed long ago, mutated by extreme environments. Take, for example, the insectoid civilization, which perished in civil war. Their superweapons destroyed the entire world's ecosystem, and the few survivors struggled to endure a winter that lasted centuries. They forgot all knowledge and degenerated into beasts. Millennia passed, and the harsh environment caused these beasts to mutate and alienate again and again, eventually becoming ferocious and bloodthirsty monsters… Gradually, the insectoids lost their once-glorious and proud name, becoming what other civilizations called 'demons.'
The so-called Abyss Worm was merely the insectoid civilization's original means of reproduction… Before they had civilization, they were a race that scattered their eggs across the world, relying on luck to produce offspring. After gaining civilization, they learned to collectively raise their young and no longer casually scattered their eggs, allowing the larval worms to wriggle about freely. But in the current Sixth Abyss, no demon tribe possessed such a concept.
At the time, Goliath did not know what it would later encounter, nor what it would have to bear. As a greedy demon, it was merely glad to have found a large, delicious, and extremely weak piece of raw meat that filled its belly for several days and allowed it to complete its first transformation. It was only after becoming an Abyss Lord, a Demon King, and learning everything that had happened in this world in ages past, that Goliath understood: back then, it might have killed the last normal insectoid in existence.
But so what? The age of the insectoids was long over. They destroyed themselves. No one could condemn anyone, least of all demons.
Now, centuries after that feast, the Demon King was deep in thought—it was not pondering the 'destruction' or 'conquest' that demons craved, but rather 'the future' and 'hope.'
Ridiculous? Not at all. Even the greediest Demon King… no, precisely because it was the greediest Demon King, Goliath yearned for the future and hope that were forever unattainable in the Abyss.
After all, in the Abyss, compared to absolute power and victory in war, the hope of the future was a far rarer and more inconceivable thing. The most naive demon dared not even dream of it. And it was for this reason that the Demon King fell into a long silence.
Under the centuries-long rule of Abyss Lord Goliath, the unified demons no longer devoured raw flesh or slaughtered each other in chaos. They had regained basic concepts of community and learned how to build cities… The demon army marched with its lord, conquering other worlds. But as the power of the Sixth Abyss expanded, the targets for plunder grew fewer and stronger. The once cruel and bloodthirsty Demon King gradually calmed down and began to think: how could it continue to develop demon civilization—not insectoid, but demon civilization?
If it continued to wage war like this, one day the Sixth Abyss would hit an iron wall it could not break. A civilization more powerful than itself would utterly destroy the Sea of Flame Hell, leaving no place for any demon to die. This was no joke. Goliath knew that the multiverse was not lacking in the strong. Even the Mycroft World, which had once been its target, had recently shown immense potential and strength—this was proof.
So, give up war and develop in peace?
That was also impossible.
The Shadow King raised its head, the map of the Sixth Abyss surfaced in its mind—the world resources it possessed were pitifully barren. Pervasive toxic gases and howling gales choked the lives of its subjects. In this desperate apocalypse, even demons struggled to survive. If not for the vast supplies plundered in recent wars, countless monsters and demons would have long since turned to slaughtering each other out of hunger, sparking a civil war that would engulf the entire Abyss. This was the norm for most Abysses: the surviving life forms devoured each other until the entire world died completely, like the Seventh Abyss.
Thinking of this, even a being as cruel and merciless as Goliath could only fall silent, unable to speak.
Should it use its dwindling resources to build schools, giving the next generation of demons a faint, almost imperceptible hope and order? Or should it concentrate all resources on the strong, like the Demon Lords, letting them serve as the mainstay for the continuation of civilization? For demons too old to perform labor, should it cruelly drive them into the wilderness to fend for themselves, or establish a concentration camp to properly house these aged but experienced demons?
Even more extreme questions… For survival, can the corpses of kin be eaten? For the continuation of offspring, can the bodies of parents be reused? Should the dead be respected, with tombs built to provide meaningless psychological comfort, or should their bodies be treated as reusable resources, coldly sent to the mess hall?
Can demons, long accustomed to devouring and killing each other, ever acquire morality and conscience, picking up the long-lost standards of civilization from the garbage heap of millennia past?
The answer was no.
This was the end times. This was the Abyss—the hell of all legends, the place of eternal damnation. There was no mercy here, no redemption.
This was the problem faced by any civilization that emerged after the destruction of the original world order.
Demons were not demons because they wanted to be, but because they could only be demons. The insectoids were destined to fall. In such an apocalypse, if life wanted to survive, it had to abandon all reason and morality, for beyond mere existence, they could not afford to hope for more.
The Shadow King stared at the dancing flame before it. The fire was blazing white, hot enough to melt steel and boil rock. It contained a power of utmost holiness, capable of making a lit Ultimate-rank Greater Demon wail in agony for seven days and seven nights before dying. Yet it could also purify polluted water and revive tainted land. But Goliath silently extinguished the flame in its hand—it did not want to see this. Holy fire was useless for reviving the Abyss. It wanted another kind.
Another kind of flame—one that could rekindle the world, satisfy its greed, and grant the Demon King the most precious thing in the Abyss: 'the future and hope.'
Of course, if the day ever came when demons reached the step they desired, beneath their feet would surely be the resentment-filled, wailing bones of other civilizations. The rebirth of one race must be paved with the deaths of hundreds of other races. The rise of one civilization must inevitably cut off the hopes of hundreds of others. Who could judge whose cruelty and ruthlessness? Who would be sacrificed? Who would lose everything? Who would weep amidst destruction? Goliath did not care about these things. It was a demon. It was the Demon King. It was the master of the Sixth Abyss.
"I will obtain it."
Goliath murmured to itself, and then its voice transformed from a single voice into a chorus, as if thousands were speaking in unison: "We must obtain it."
With these words, ripples of distorted space echoed behind the Demon King, as if in reply.
The Will of the Abyss was one with its lord. Its wish was 'its' wish.
This was their wish.
And at that very moment, the two Demon Lords bearing the hope of the Demon King were facing their own fears in the Bloodmoon Abyss.