Chapter 76: The Demon in Charge of Punishment
He slowly withdrew his magic power, and the cold black aura around him dissipated as well.
When Roy was about to store the souls of the killed demons, the pool water, which was originally only splashing and bubbling, suddenly rolled up and formed a vortex. This vortex had a strong suction force that actually sucked in the surrounding souls!
All of this happened so unexpectedly quickly that Roy could not react, and it was already too late to try to get the souls back.
At the same time, Roy felt a powerful force acting on him. It was the power of the barrier! Roy and Fat Tiger were repelled by the power of the barrier and were flung out of the place of refinement immediately.
He was thrown out of one of the demon head gates, and the power dissipated the moment he emerged from the barrier. Even so, Roy and Fat Tiger fell to the ground.
The middle-rank demons loitering around the periphery of the place of refinement looked at Roy and Fat Tiger with puzzled expressions, not knowing what was going on.
But right at this moment, these middle-rank demons seemed to sense something, and they howled before fleeing in all directions.
Roy had just climbed up from the ground when he saw the eyes of the demon gate that he flew out of glow red, as though the demon gate was alive!
With the red light shining, a powerful force or will descended onto the demon gate. Roy felt the same power as he had from Xeron, so he knew that it was definitely the will of a high-rank demon that connected with the demon gate.
“Woah! Look at what we have here. Another challenger has appeared!” the demon gate said as it stared at Roy with red eyes. The demon’s face gave off the feeling of sarcastic laughter.
“Your Excellency, you are…?” Knowing that the other party was a high-rank demon, Roy did not dare to be careless. Fortunately, he had practiced having false respect when he was with Xeron, so he showed a humble and puzzled expression.
“My name is Edrach! A high-rank demon!” the voice said. “Servant of Demon Lord Rogeros! Kid, don’t you know that it’s forbidden to kill within the barrier of this place of refinement?”
“I don’t know, Your Excellency Edrach!” Roy replied. “If they attack me, I can’t just stand still and let them attack, right?”
“Hmph. I’m not interested in hearing these arguments!” Edrach said. “In the past millions of years, many demons have been unable to restrain their killing nature and killed other demons within the barrier. If I had to listen to all their reasons, wouldn’t I be exhausted? If you did it, you did it. I never care who is right!”
“Okay!” Roy sighed softly. “So, Your Excellency Edrach, did you come here to kill me for breaking the rule?”
While speaking, Roy was preparing to use Flash.
However, Edrach unexpectedly burst out laughing. “Kill you? Why?”
“Huh? Didn’t you say that I broke the rule?” Roy asked in puzzlement.
“Hmph. The blood in the pool water of this place of refinement belongs to Lord Rogeros, and the lord also sets the rules here!” Edrach said. “You have indeed broken the lord’s rule! However, chaos and killing are rules of the Demon World, so it can’t be said that you’re completely in the wrong!”
“What do you mean?” Roy was confused. What exactly is Edrach trying to express?
“Damn it. You fellows who have just promoted from low-rank demons are so troublesome!” Edrach’s voice slightly sounded impatient. “Listen up. I’ll only say it once! Don’t you understand? After becoming a middle-rank demon, you should have the status you deserve! Unlike those ant-like low-rank demons, you become a qualified warrior after knowing how to use magic power! Therefore, in some things, you can get the chance you deserve!
“It’s indeed forbidden to kill within the barrier of a place of refinement. Because if all demons do so, the number of middle-rank demons will greatly reduce!” Edrach continued. “But it is the nature of demons to kill, so even the demon lord can’t be too harsh. Since you survived the siege, it means that you were the strongest in the barrier at the time. Warriors deserve their due praise!”
Roy finally understood.
Warriors deserve praise, so in contrast, being weak was the greatest sin! His meaning was clear. Although Roy broke the rule, did Edrach need to get justice for the pathetic creatures that were killed?
Impossible. Demons did not have any mercy in the first place, and there was no way they could have any sympathy for the weak.
From the perspective of the ruling class, even though Roy had broken the rule, they preferred the brave who stood out above the rest! Because this meant that a powerful demon warrior was born.
At this moment, Roy finally experienced the changes brought about after his promotion. In this Abyss, there were no low-rank demons… The rulers did not even have their eyes on low-rank demons, but once they became middle-rank demons, they would immediately receive importance.
This was very obvious class discrimination. The more powerful a demon, the more power they had to violate the rules. And if you had enough power, you could even set the rules!
Roy felt that he really should not use his human thinking to gauge the attitudes of demons toward certain things…
“I understand!” Roy nodded. “Your Excellency Edrach, thank you for your regard!”
“It’s good that you understand. It seems like you aren’t stupid!” Edrach’s voice seemed very satisfied. A smarter demon saved him the trouble of wasting his breath. “Warriors should obtain the rights they deserve. But this kind of behavior is not worthy of promoting after all, so you still have to receive punishment. Lord Rogeros has no time to care about these trivial matters. Thus, I hereby announce your punishment: You must carry out an execution mission!”
“An execution mission?”
“Yes! Execution mission. But the target of this sentence is not you. You are the executioner! You are to kill a target Lord Rogeros chose!” Edrach said. “This task has a certain degree of difficulty because the target is often stronger than you. If you successfully execute the sentence, then when you return, Lord Rogeros will reward you properly…”
“So, if I can’t kill the target and get killed instead, it will be my punishment for breaking the rule. Is that right?” Roy understood immediately.
“Yes!” Edrach said. “Punishment and execution depend on whether or not you are truly strong. I hope you don’t only know how to bully weak demons…”
A black ball of light appeared in front of Roy as Edrach spoke. In the ball of light was a crystal the thickness of a thumb, and the crystal floated in front of Roy. Edrach said, “This is a memory crystal, and it has information about your target. You can read it after inputting magic power. Remember, you only have a year to complete the execution mission… After completing the mission, you can come here to find me!”
With that, the power of Edrach’s will gradually dissipated from the demon gate, and its red eyes slowly dimmed.
Roy did not touch the memory crystal immediately but swayed his tail and started to ponder.
He did not expect to encounter such a thing just after promoting to middle-rank demon. Roy noticed some information from Edrach’s words.
Demon lords were existences higher than high-rank demons. And these places of refinement seemed to have been built with the blood of demon lords. Different from their attitude of letting low-rank demons do whatever they wanted in the upper Abyss, these demon rulers seemed to consciously manage the middle Abyss. However, this place was not the world where high-rank demons and demon lords lived, so they could only execute their will through this way of having their power descend.
Roy had just entered the middle Abyss, and he was still unclear about many things. He had indeed broken a rule set by a demon lord, but in the eyes of the ruling class, it was still within acceptable range. After all, the demon lord who set up this place of refinement had specially made the barrier. After the pool water took the souls, he was immediately expelled out of the barrier. This meant that they had already expected this to happen, so he was merely punished.
Of course, rules were divided into the tolerable and intolerable. If Roy had killed in a place where the little demons were born, he would have definitely been killed. This would have been absolutely intolerable.
It was better to call this an opportunity rather than punishment because this mission wanted Roy to kill another demon as an executioner instead of other demons hunting him down. Edrach did not even enter into a demon contract with Roy, and the time frame given was rather loose.
If he could complete the mission, he would receive a reward. This model resembled a mercenary accepting a mission, and it looked like it was giving an opportunity and training Roy.
Hmm… It could not be said that Roy was the only one. From Edrach’s meaning, many demons had broken the rule in the place of refinement, so other demons might have also received the same treatment as Roy.
This situation, in addition to the word ‘warrior’ that Edrach revealed, made Roy wonder if this was the demon lord training his army.
The so-called lords meant that they had territory under their control, and generally speaking, there was only one lord per territory. Even human lords would fight each other, let alone demon lords. Therefore, Roy felt that the middle Abyss was actually the source of soldiers for the demon lords!
Chaos, massacre, war… Tsk, such a world rhythm is indeed very troublesome. Don’t tell me these demons are that bored?
Roy shook his head, took the memory crystal floating in front of him, input his magic power, and decided to check what kind of mission target Edrach had given him…
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