Chapter 211: (Interlude) Demonic Mist

"Why did you bring me here?" Diana shouted to no one as she cleaved through a twisted demon that was a monstrous amalgamation of rotten bone that emerged from limbs jutting out in the wrong directions and leaking pus.

She dodged to the side to avoid a spray of blackened blood, and once the demon was lying dead on the ground, she bent down and absorbed the demonic Qi within. Despite the monster's grotesque appearance, its Qi was most delectable. If not for her need to maintain a careful balance in her soul between the water and demonic Qi, she would allow herself to feast on the demonic Qi from the corpse some more.

Standing back up and sighing, she surveyed the barren landscape that went on forever. Below her feet was this hardened, dull grey sand, and there was nothing other than accursed monsters groaning as they hauled their deformed bodies across the land in search of their next meal.

This is literal hell. Diana cursed as she shook the blood off her blade and sheathed it. Since arriving here a week ago, she had seen no signs of Neptune and had been left to roam this barren land and kill any monster that sought her out.

It was a depressing, lonely, and mind-numbing experience. Diana missed Stella's smile and laughter, Kaida coiling around her legs as she meditated, the fresh mountain air, and especially the morning sunshine. Here, there was none of that. Nobody to talk to except herself. There were no streams of water, bustling plant life, howling winds... It was as if this place was a null zone devoid of all the color and life that made existence so wonderful. It was a place where everything had been stripped, and only the barest bones remained.

Diana wanted to go home.

"This sucks," Diana grumbled as she put up her hood and crossed her arms. She didn't even have the motivation to explore anymore. There was simply no point. The first few days, she had wandered, hoping to find something new, but that yearning for adventure had long passed. Her expectations had been tempered, and now she just wanted to leave.

"Not having fun?" A neutral voice made Diana spin around in the sand.

"It's you," Diana pointed an accusing finger at Neptune, "You have some explaining to do. Why did you dump me here without another word for a whole week?"

"I was curious to see if you would go insane," Neptune said with a deadpan expression.

"What...?" Diana was taken aback. Insane? Why would she go insane? If anything, Neptune was the insane one here.

"If you went insane, there would be no point teaching or showing you anything. That is why I brought you here." Neptune gestured around, "As I think you might have guessed, this is Hell. The birthplace of your ancestors, the Ravena Clan."

"What does me going insane have to do with that?" Diana asked while keeping her cool and resisting the urge to try and stab the Worldwalker in the face. Partly because she wasn't fooled by the relatively harmless-looking human skin suit the Worldwalker was wearing and knew the monster within could snap her out of existence, and because she was genuinely interested in what Neptune had to say.

Even if Diana was unable to ascend to the Star Core Realm this time round, just a little bit of knowledge about her ancestors, the Ravena Clan, would have made it worth it. Anything regarding bloodlines was supposed to be forbidden knowledge, after all...

On that thought, Diana looked to the skies that were as dull as the sand below her feet and was surprised to see no sign of heaven's rage at Neptune's words.

"Fear not. I can speak however I wish down here," Neptune said, drawing Diana's attention again. "Much like the void, Hell is outside heaven's influence."

"So this really is Hell..." Diana muttered.

"Indeed, and I apologize for needing to test you," Neptune said, "Although I smelled the Ravena Clan on you, I had to verify with my own eyes that you could resist the madness this place brings."

"You smelled me? And what madness? Wait, can you start from the beginning?" Diana asked while massaging her temples in frustration, "I am terribly lost right now. What test? How are we in Hell? What am I doing here?"

"Relax, and let me explain. Imagine the heavens as a grand waterfall," Neptune raised their hands above their head and did a trickling down motion, "Everything at the top is perfect and vibrant since the reality closest to heaven is built in its purest form. But as the heavenly Qi trickles down the layers of creations, it becomes tainted."

"What makes the Qi tainted?" Diana asked.

"Cultivators take in the heavenly Qi, cycle it within their souls, and alter it. Changing the Qi into something that slightly reflects them." Neptune explained, "When the Qi is eventually expelled, through attacks or other techniques, it will carry a hint of their negative emotions."

"Negative emotions, like if they are having a bad day?"

Diana didn't know the answers to her wandering thoughts, but anything to take her mind off the bizarre situation was ideal.

After a few minutes of walking down the path lined with a dense forest on either side, Diana stopped. Something about the fog bothered her, so she took a moment to inspect it more closely.

"This fog is filled with an equal mixture of water and demonic Qi." Diana murmured as she waved her hand through it, "How is that possible? My demonic Qi always reacted violently with my water Qi, so I always cultivated and used them separately. Keeping them at arm's length in my soul and never letting them interact with one another if I could help it."

Feeling confused, she decided to sit down against a nearby tree. "Why does cultivating while leaning on a tree feel like the only way to do it now," Diana grumbled as she straightened her back against its damp bark and closed her eyes.

Slowly, she allowed the strange mist to enter her soul by breathing in a controlled rhythm, and even though she was deep within her own consciousness, she couldn't help but frown.

This fog wasn't a simple mixture of water and demonic Qi. It was its own type of Qi, as if it were some sort of demonic mist Qi. No matter how hard she tried, she could not separate the two into just water or demonic Qi and fill up the separate halves of her soul.

Yet bizarrely, her soul embraced the demonic mist Qi as if it were a long-lost friend. She had always found her cultivation method to be slower due to cultivating two separate types of Qi and keeping them apart. Yet now that she was cultivating this demonic mist, she felt her soul core filling so fast that it began to push out what she already had.

Her skin began to feel sticky as pus, much like the stuff leaking from the demons she had slain in Hell, began to soak her clothes. Its pungent smell made her eyes water, but she pressed on.

Hours passed, and she had long discarded the ruined clothes and began to fully embrace the changes. With her bare back against the tree and sitting on the cold stone, Diana had her eyes closed as she pulled in the demonic mist all around her, ensuring it carried away the impurities leaking from her body as she replaced the demonic and water Qi for this superior demonic mist Qi.

Even her hair fell out at one point, but then it began to grow back, longer and more full of life than before.

A few days passed, and Diana's Soul Core reached critical mass. It began to rapidly expand within her body, and she could feel the pressure of the heavens overhead taking interest.

"This is it," Diana hissed through gritted teeth, "Bring it on!"

Keeping her focus on trying to compress her rapidly expanding Soul Core into a Star Core, she gobbled down some Lighting Resistance fruit courtesy of Ashlock and prepared to feel the pain.

The heavens did not disappoint as they rained down hell. The trees around Diana were set aflame and blasted to pieces as lightning bolts arced down from every direction and struck her body. Even with the fruit's power rippling across her skin and absorbing the impact, she still felt tempered by the heavens as if they were trying to tell her to quell her arrogance.

Weeks passed as Diana braved the storm. Further impurities were purged from her body during this time, and her soul underwent drastic changes. The lightning helped her Soul Core get the explosive growth in power it needed to rapidly condense back down into a brand new Star Core.

Looking within, she confirmed her Star Core had the demon mist affinity.

"Phew," Diana breathed out and slowly opened her eyes after an hour of pain. "Is this what Neptune meant about discarding my humanity?" Diana wondered as she inspected her nails, which were sharp as claws, and ran them through her new long black hair that ran down to her knees and had a strange blue tint.

"The demonic mist Qi seems to have removed that careful balance I was always maintaining between my human and demon form," Diana ran her finger along her teeth and confirmed the fangs were there, just less pronounced than when she was in her demon form. Luckily, no horns seemed to have sprouted from her head yet, as that would be hard to hide. She summoned a mirror and confirmed she still looked mostly human with her grey eyes and normal face, so long as she didn't smile carelessly.

"So I'm some sort of hybrid between human and demon now?" Diana clenched her back, and two majestic wings of raven feathers manifested from her shoulder blades. Demonic mist Qi evaporated off the wings, giving them a menacing look. Flexing them a little, she felt better control over them than before. "Wait, I wonder if I can fly freely with these now that I am in the Star Core Realm?"

Standing up with a groan, Diana's spatial ring flashed as clothes appeared on her body. Since the last pair had been ruined by the sickly impurities, she chose to wear the other artifact gear she had purchased from the merchants back in Slymere that had later almost stamped her to death...

"Bastards," Diana muttered as she checked out her dark blue cargo trousers. There was a belt buckle that served as a great place to carry a dagger, and the white hoodie she wore was very comfortable while allowing great movement. Letting her hair hang loosely down her back, she looked around at the destruction and silently prayed for the trees that were sadly lost due to the lightning.

"From the ashes, I hope you grow anew," Diana said quietly.

After her prayer, Diana spread her wings and leaped up into the air. Her Star Core hummed in her chest and sent pulses of power through her wings, and to her awe, she could stay floating in the air. Flapping them a few times to gain height, she surveyed the land and spotted the shadow of a giant stone structure within the distant mist.

"I wonder if that is where I can inherit the true demon blood of the Ravena Clan that Neptune had mentioned earlier." Diana mused as she began gliding towards it, trailing demonic mist as she went.