Chapter 683: Silencing the Witness
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 683: Silencing the Witness
"To think... I would actually lose to a mere human..."
Chihe Nilo lay on the ground, blood geysering from his nose and mouth. A massive wound tore through his chest, leaving even his mangled, cloven heart visible to the eye.
The cardiac valves continued to pump with desperate effort, but more blood surged from the hideous rent than through his veins.
"What do you mean, 'mere human'? You make it sound like we're the ones pinned down in the Abyss, unable to crawl out."
Muen’s body swayed. He took a few staggering steps and leaned against the nearby fortress wall to steady himself.
His injuries were equally severe. Several deep punctures had transfixed his body and internal organs; his shirt was already dyed a deep, sodden crimson.
These were wounds grave enough to kill an ordinary person ten times over. After all, he had been locked in a life-and-death struggle with a Demon General whose realm was an entire major rank above his own. Even in victory, it was a narrow escape.
Fortunately, he was just a little bit tougher than the average person.
"That was close. If it had been me before the Exchange Battle, I doubt I would have been your match."
Now, Muen could only say... Ariel, your techniques are truly too useful.
Muen gingerly touched his wounds. Black flames flickered, and the injuries began to knit together at a visible rate. However, they only closed partially; he no longer had the strength remaining for a full recovery.
"Any last words?"
Muen walked over to Chihe Nilo’s side.
Though his methods just now had been somewhat underhanded, Muen couldn't help but admire the demon's courage in entering this fortress alone.
"Last... words?"
"As long as it isn't some nauseating confession about still being in love with me, I have the patience to listen to anything else."
"Heh... I told you, I’m not... into men."
Chihe Nilo chuckled. His crimson pupils, gradually losing focus, turned toward the Abyssal sky—a sky forever shrouded in an eternal, unmoving haze.
"Last words? Heh. We of the proud Demon Race... do not leave behind such weak things..."
"Is that so?"
Muen looked at him expressionlessly and raised his hand.
"Then there is nothing left to say."
In Muen’s palm, eerie black flames began to swirl like nimble sprites. They flowed along Chihe Nilo’s broken husk, surging into his body and beginning to rapidly devour his soul.
Muen rarely resorted to such cruel methods as consuming a soul, but in this specific situation, his desire for information outweighed any minor pangs of conscience.
"I hope this helps us."
Muen closed his eyes.
The Black Book rose from the depths of his consciousness space. Its pages flipped rapidly as countless fragments recorded within the soul began to piece together into images.
These were the records from Chihe Nilo’s soul. Given his status as a Demon General, these records should have easily yielded high-level intelligence.
But... only "should have."
Muen’s eyes snapped open in slight surprise.
What greeted his vision was not the expected sequence of memories from Chihe Nilo’s life.
No, they were his memories, but...
"They're too fragmented."
Muen frowned.
After a person died, even if one used the black flames to devour them as quickly as possible, the soul would not be perfectly intact. Consequently, Muen had never obtained a truly complete soul record—nor did he hold much hope for one.
However, the information obtained from Chihe Nilo’s soul... it wasn't just a mess of disorganized scenes. Even the individual images themselves looked like they had been stitched together from a million tiny shards.
Muen felt less like he was reading a soul record and more like he was staring into a series of bizarre kaleidoscopes.
While they were certainly pretty... they were useless for his purposes.
"What’s going on? I’ve never encountered this before... Black Book."
Muen couldn't help but ask, "What is the meaning of this?"
Rustle.
The pages fluttered as if dancing in the wind, and text manifested upon the Black Book.
【Because his soul was already damaged and fragmented to begin with. Therefore, upon being read, it appears even more shattered.】
"Fragmented?"
Muen grew more confused. "You mean Chihe Nilo’s soul was already broken before I killed him?"
【Yes.】
The text shifted again.
【Or rather, it was on the verge of shattering.】
"On the verge?"
Muen pondered for a moment. "Was it a side effect of praying to the Love God for that so-called 'affection'?"
Thinking it over, that seemed like the only possibility.
Otherwise, if his soul had sustained such severe damage naturally, there would have been some outward manifestation. He wouldn't have been so composed during their battle.
Unfortunately, the Black Book did not answer Muen’s further doubts. Perhaps even it did not know, or perhaps Muen’s guess was the correct answer.
The Black Book sank back into the depths of Muen’s consciousness, its presence becoming as faint as the "Single's Resentment" he usually carried.
Muen opened his eyes again and looked at Chihe Nilo.
The demon on the ground had even his soul consumed by the black flames, yet a look of liberation now rested on his pale face.
It was as if he, who had spent his life in the Abyss... had finally seen the true sun.
*
"Eternal life?"
After dealing with the aftermath of Chihe Nilo, Muen appeared at Old Robert’s side. He sat down, grimacing as he rubbed his chest, which had mostly recovered.
"That word certainly surprises me."
"Are you alright, son?"
Lorne’s eyes widened. Seeing Muen covered in blood, he hurriedly called out to the subordinates: "Quick, quick! Get a healing mage over here—"
"Forget it, it's fine, Father. I’m okay."
Muen pulled out a handkerchief to wipe the blood from his face and waved him off. "This kind of injury is nothing to me. I'm used to it. Look, I’ve already mostly recovered."
"Is that so..."
Lorne’s eyes flickered slightly. Once he confirmed that Muen was indeed out of danger, he let out a subtle sigh. He felt a strange sense of melancholy, realizing his son had grown up behind his back. "Sigh. If your mother knew you were out here risking your life like this every other day, I’d probably have to kneel on a washboard until it snapped in half."
"Then we just won't tell her. Besides, with your strength, Father, why would you fear a mere washboard?" Muen joked.
"Then you don't know your mother's strength when she's angry. Even a Crown Bearer couldn't withstand that..."
Lorne shook his head, his heart trembling slightly at the memory of the Lady’s terrifying majesty at home.
"..."
Muen thought of his mother’s excessive doting and felt a headache coming on. He quickly changed the subject.
"Back to the point. Mr. Robert, what exactly do you mean by 'eternal life'? Can you explain it in detail?"
"Eternal life... eternal life is eternal life. Does it really need much explanation?"
Old Robert gave a miserable, jagged grin.
"It does. I want to know what it is."
Muen stared into Old Robert’s eyes and said seriously:
"Because personally, I absolutely do not believe there is such a thing as eternal life in this world."
After all, even his swindling Loli Teacher, despite possessing the Eternal Clock—a prototype of an artificial Temporal Authority—still required long periods of slumber to extend her lifespan. He didn't believe the mere Demon Race could grant someone immortality at will.
Furthermore, the demons themselves were currently in a desperate plight. As Muen had just thought, if the demons could easily achieve things humans couldn't, it made the humans look like the ones trapped in the Abyss.
"It is indeed preposterous, unbelievable, but... but I saw it..."
Old Robert reminisced. He remembered the moment he was about to die during his last military expedition, and the demon who appeared before him, showing him... that.
It was something unbelievable, yet it truly existed...
Yes, eternal life was real! It wasn't his hallucination, nor was it a demon's lie. That kind of thing couldn't be faked!
That eerie, fanatical look resurfaced on Old Robert’s face.
"I saw it with my own eyes. I saw the demons' method for eternal life... it works. It absolutely works. You might not understand, but I know. I know that as long as I help the demons, I can obtain true immortality. Because... because the entire Demon Race is—ack."
Old Robert’s words cut off abruptly.
The fanaticism of a believer turned into extreme agony. His lips parted, but no words came out.
Instead...
From within his body... from within that withered flesh, came a bizarre chewing sound.
Crunch. Crunch. It sounded like someone gnawing on bones. Every crisp echo made one's skin crawl.
"Dammit!"
Lorne was the first to react. He grabbed Old Robert by the throat, his terrifying aura erupting instantly in an attempt to suppress the abnormality within the old man's body.
But this was something deeper, something acting directly upon Old Robert’s soul. It could not be broken by brute force alone.
It could only be briefly delayed.
"Damn it, a Blood Curse. He really did have that filth planted inside him."
"To prevent him from leaking secrets?"
"Yes. It's a common method the demons use. Once the Blood Curse is triggered, it devours the entire soul along with the body, leaving not a single trace behind. This is one of the reasons why, despite fighting them for so long, we know so little about their secrets."
Lorne’s expression was fierce. He had suspected this, but he was powerless to stop it.
To this day, no one had ever broken a demon's Blood Curse.
"Devouring even the soul..."
Muen rubbed his chin. For some reason, he thought of Chihe Nilo again.
His intuition told him that among the secrets the demons wanted to hide, there might be something regarding those fragmented souls.
It might not have been a side effect of the Love God’s "affection." Based on what he knew of that Love God... He wasn't exactly a picky eater.
"No, now isn't the time for that."
Muen rushed forward, pressing his hand onto Old Robert’s shoulder, and asked quickly:
"Answer me! Were those magic materials you sent to the Abyss the only shipment?"
"Guh... guh..."
Old Robert stared at Muen, tears streaming from the corners of his eyes.
"N-no... there were... three shipments in total..."
Good. It seemed this information wasn't critical enough for the demons to have silenced him earlier.
"And the others?" Muen pressed urgently. "Where did the other two go?"
"I... I'm not entirely sure... I only heard... heard... they would be shipped to..."
Old Robert’s voice grew fainter. Muen had to press his ear almost against the man's mouth to hear the next words:
"Gutons Fortress..."
"Gutons Fortress?" Muen committed the name to memory, his mind racing.
At that moment, the light finally faded from Old Robert’s eyes. He made one last grab for Lorne’s arm, whispering a continuous stream of apologies.
"I'm sorry... I'm sorry... I didn't want to betray you... I really didn't... I was just... just... so afraid..."
Crunch.
Finally, even the chewing stopped.
Old Robert slipped from Lorne’s grip, his body collapsing into a limp heap. It was as if, aside from the outer layer of withered skin... there was nothing left inside him.
His spine and his soul had been eaten hollow the very moment he chose betrayal.
"Sigh. If you knew it would end like this, why did you do it?"
Lorne let out a long sigh. Eventually, he reached out and closed the eyelids of his former comrade-in-arms.
Even though the man could never truly rest in peace, nor return to the embrace of the Goddess.