Chapter 59: Overcooked

Chapter 59: Overcooked

The rift appeared near the outer border of the capital, and like a worm biting past the apple’s skin, it gradually spread deeper into the settlement.

Countless sects jumped at the opportunity to be the heroes of the story and sent their best to protect the citizens. Many of those unsung heroes met their ends at the fangs and claws of the serpentine invasion.

Yet even those most eager for death avoided the winged lizard's domain.

There were plenty of people to evacuate and a whole load of silver-rank snakes to exterminate. Someone else could take the role of keeping the dragon fed.

A small group of gold path cultivators searched for those caught up in the blast radius of the dragon breath. Supremely cautiously. Nobody wanted to find themselves stuck in the path of purple demise.

Corpses littered the ruins. Anyone below the silver path that the intense energy had grazed had already perished or was well on their way.

They spotted something peculiar as they approached the edges of the destruction caused by the breath.

A trail of blood.

They assumed they would find a corpse at the trail's end, but the more they followed it, the longer it went. Eventually, the path of blood ended, and no corpse was found. There was no time to contemplate this.

Many snakes still slithered around, so it was likely that whoever it was had been eaten by now.

May the heavens bring them salvation, the cultivators thought as they changed their priority to snake extermination.

***

It was lucky that this rift didn’t release an undead invasion. If it had, Neave would likely have been mistaken for one of the invaders.

At first, he had used his shapeshifting skill to try and change his form into something more maneuverable than an open bag of organs, but his extensive injuries hindered the spirit power.

Thus, Neave resorted to crawling like a bloody slug. His body bled endlessly. As he hunted snakes and devoured them, usually by directly showing them into his open stomach, he regenerated his body and produced more blood.

The flesh remained attached, but the blood vacated his body through his countless wounds.

Neave assumed his distance from death spirit power allowed him to stay alive even in this form. That was the only thing that had stopped him from croaking after that ungodly blast by the dragon.

Neave wasn’t thinking about the dragon now, however. His focus was on carefully treading the line between almost-corpse and definitely-corpse.

He jumped from one snake to another, and gradually, almost-corpse won the fight. His body, on top of being reduced to a creepy demonic sect prop, had also been fried far past well done. The purple flames, energy, or whatever the hell that was, didn’t leave regular burns behind either.

It was as if his body had been crystalized on the cellular level. It took far more than just a few snakes to undo the damage the fire had caused.

Slowly but surely, Neave managed to consume enough to at least close his torso back up. Then he grew back small stumps which he extended with his shapeshifting power into quasi-limbs.

Eventually, he fully regrew his limbs back as well. This was just barely enough to allow him to function normally again. He was still short on skin practically everywhere on his body, and the blast had burned most of his muscles into stiff jerky that could only be moved by his shapeshifting spirit power.

Luckily for Neave, the snakes were packed with energy and practically everywhere. Now that he at least had a vaguely normal-shaped body, he could get to work.

Neave flew from one snake to another and slurped them like violet noodles. The sight of a skinless, charred Neave hopping around and eating snakes alive could keep any child up at night, probably well into adulthood.

That was the type of trauma that, luckily, most people had already evacuated from.

Neave could sense a lot of cultivators scurrying around the area, although the range of his spirit senses was limited. He avoided encountering anyone, mainly to avoid any misunderstandings.

Neave cursed as he realized his dimension ring was gone. He had moved everything into the dimension ring given to him by Maecy. And now it was just fucking gone. He didn’t know whether it had disintegrated or flown off somewhere in the distance.

It made no sense. That was absurd.

This was a diamond path cultivator sent by the empire itself.

So how the hell is this person a demon?

Neave’s heart pounded, and his crystal veins crackled and chimed beneath his skin. He wanted to fight. He wanted to kill the dragon and interrogate the demon, peel the armor off, and see for himself what lay beneath. He wanted to ask what it was doing here.

He wanted to ask what its goals were.

And he wanted to ask whether it was connected to the devils.

It had to be. Or maybe it didn’t. Neave honestly didn’t understand enough about demons to conclude anything. Most of his dislike came from his experience within the loop and his hatred of the devil that created it.

But... Well, he didn’t really like the gods either. Or humans, honestly. Shit, Neave seemed to hate everyone. Regardless of race, it was evident that anyone could be a shitty individual. Granted, the demons had a reputation, one they definitely earned. There was so much he wanted to know about this demon.

Seriously, what the fuck is happening?

Neave wanted to get in there and fight, but, well... That was unrealistic. The dragon reduced him to a roasted bag of overcooked organs with a single breath, and that was ignoring the fact that its pink puppets alone were too much for him to handle.

Yet, he still wanted to fight. He felt a deep itch all over his body to rush in there. First of all, how dare that fucking dragon do that to him?

Didn’t he say there would be no weaknesses? Didn’t he say there would be no limits? Didn’t he say that there would be no compromise?

Neave knew he was getting ahead of himself. He took a few deep breaths to relax. This wasn’t his fight, not yet. There was no need to rush. He needed what? Months? Weeks? Days?

If he correctly utilized the mysterious realm he entered whenever he fell unconscious, he could make insane progress rapidly. There was no need to take a stupid risk.

He knew it wouldn’t be that simple, but he ignored that. He would circumvent the complications that arose, one way or another.

That was right. He could step back and wait. Soon he would be powerful enough to do whatever he wanted. Neave tried turning around to step back, but his hand was stuck.

When he arrived here, he had peeked from behind a building and grabbed a metal rod to lean on it.

He had squeezed it so hard that the metal completely deformed under his grip.

Who am I kidding?

Neave grinned. He freed his hand and started walking toward the fight.

Neave paused. There was a spirit behind him, veiled heavily, but it was one that he recognized.

He continued walking after a mere second of hesitation. It was nothing but a coincidence, and it wasn’t unusual enough to make him stop until he realized that the spirit was heading straight for him.

A cloaked cultivator wearing a pitch-black cloak ran toward him. It was the green-haired boy from the library, or rather, Dukean.

Is he approaching me?

Why? Neave wanted to turn around and head to the fight, but his curiosity was killing him. Neave was unsure what this young man wanted from him, especially now that he was disguised. He waited, and eventually, Dukean approached him.

Once Dukean stood in front of him, he bowed a little.

“I apologize for my rudeness. I know my timing is awful, but there is something essential I have to talk to you about.” Dukean raised his gaze and stared Neave right into his eyes, “How much do you know about demons?”