Chapter 110: Past Glory

Without the Hero, I needed extreme micro-management and maneuvers as swift as the wind.

Every battle ended with me sweating profusely, as if I were a melee minion trying to solo a scripted Xerath.

With the Hero, my only concern was which posture to use for [F2+Ao].

After finishing her trash talk, Liya suddenly understood the Hero a bit better—playing with a “stat monster” for too long really did make one’s eyes go dull and their mechanical skills decline!

Upon hearing Liya’s blatant threat of “unleashing the Hero,” Yuna immediately raised her hands in surrender, a bitter smile on her face.

“Fine, fine, Little Lily. Just pretend I didn’t say anything.”

She turned serious.

“I’ll go back and talk some sense into them. Right now, disaster relief is the critical mission. We should focus on the bigger picture.”

“Don’t try to get all cozy with me!”

Liya interrupted irritably.

“We did all the work. It has nothing to do with your Church. Don’t go quietly claiming the credit for yourselves!”

“How could I? Lily, you’re misunderstanding your big sister…”

Yuna’s face immediately filled with grievance, a layer of mist rising in her bright eyes.

“You might not think so in your heart, but your instincts are doing it for you!” Liya exposed her bluntly.

Yuna froze.

“Am I?”

“Yes.”

After sending away the dazed Saintess, Liya suddenly grew curious about where Jon had run off to.

Logically, based on Jon’s behavior before he left, he was clearly planning to make some “big news.”

Yet, up until now, there hadn’t been a peep.

For someone with the Hero’s level of destructive power, a lack of noise usually meant a massive disturbance was lurking.

‘He wouldn’t have secretly run off to blow up the moon, would he?’

Admittedly, with the Hero’s abilities, jumping from the ground at First Cosmic Velocity wasn’t difficult.

The problem was—that idiot Hero couldn’t calculate an orbital trajectory!

‘I hope he doesn’t go slamming himself headfirst into the sun!’

After worrying for a moment, the sun began to set in the west.

Liya didn’t see the Hero return, but she did receive some strange news.

“You’re saying… someone found half-human, half-snake demons in the river?”

Liya fell into deep thought.

Half-human, half-snake—those should be Nagas.

Nagas were one of the primary races of the Fourth Demon Realm.

In a sense, they were the demons Liya liked the most—though, of course, that was limited to juvenile Nagas.

The Fourth Demon Realm was known as the Sea of Lost.

It was a bizarre sea territory shrouded in the aura of a Demon God.

Any intelligent life submerged in it would be eroded by the Demon God’s will.

While they gained the Demon God’s power, they would gradually become numb, idiotic, and insane—though the lunatics themselves never realized it.

Because of this, the sirens of the Fourth Demon Realm generally went through four stages: the Eggshell Stage, the Juvenile Stage, the Adult Stage, and the Elder Stage.

Eggshell Stage Nagas were wrapped in thick chitinous shells, cutting off contact with the outside world.

Thus, this was their most active, intelligent, and vibrant stage.

Juvenile Nagas broke out of their shells.

Having absorbed some of the Demon God’s power, they gradually revealed a combative, paranoid, and rebellious side, yet they still retained a child-like curiosity and a high-spirited will to fight.

Their rationality had not yet been extinguished, and they loved to share and communicate with others.

But once they entered the Adult Stage, the Naga’s mental symptoms became severe.

Although they gained greater strength, they lost interest, passion, and the desire to communicate with the outside world.

They spent their days immersed in their own little worlds, mechanically repeating their labor day after day, like the walking dead—muddled and confused.

As for the Elder Stage Nagas, their bodies became bloated and massive.

They were completely eroded by the Demon God’s will, their bodies filled with the tentacles the Demon God extended into the physical world.

They spent their days wallowing in memories and fantasies.

Aside from eating, they spent their time suppressing younger Nagas to maintain their own authority.

These Elders had long since become puppets of the Demon God’s will, yet they possessed terrifying power, almost qualifying as “demi-gods.”

Consequently, Elders were the absolute rulers of every Naga tribe.

Liya remembered that back then, she had recruited those young Nagas by helping them defeat the Elders and liberating the tribes.

However, such liberation was only temporary.

There would always be Nagas who grew up, and there would always be Nagas who grew old and became new Elders.

“Hmm… about how big were the Nagas found in the river? Two meters? Three meters?”

Liya continued to question the messenger.

She suspected an unstable Abyss Gate had opened somewhere in the river, letting a few hunting juvenile Nagas slip through.

“Uh… they didn’t seem that small. I’d guess they were seven or eight meters long,” the messenger recalled with effort.

“Huh?”

Liya’s eyes widened.

Seven or eight meters? Adult Nagas?

That was impossible!

The ecology of the Naga race was very peculiar; they were one of the few races in the Demon Realm that needed to eat.

Eggshell Stage Nagas were fed by their parents.

Juvenile Nagas would gather and hunt, occasionally invading the human realm through Abyss Gates to treat humans as prey.

But once they reached the Adult Stage, sooner or later, the Nagas would lose interest in other foods and begin to feed on their weaker kin… and the Elder who served as the tribal chief would swallow several in a single bite.

They called this “maturing.”

Juvenile Nagas who refused to eat their kin felt angry and disgusted, but adult Nagas took it for granted, turning a blind eye.

They would use nonsensical, pseudo-poetic language to express a numb sense of helplessness.

“Sadness, very fragrant. Growth, brings hunger.”

“Like birth, aging, sickness, and death; like mist flowing into the ocean.”

Back then, Liya failed to persuade the adult Nagas.

She only mobilized the juveniles to form her first core army.

The method she used involved her specialty—luring them with benefits—and the most royal of political tools: a grand vision.

‘Do you like the things I’ve brought? Do you want to go “ashore” and see for yourselves?’

‘On the shore, there are bright stars and moons, all kinds of beautiful little animals, and fatty meat that can fill your bellies without needing to eat your own kind.’

‘Your lives shouldn’t stop here, becoming food and puppets for the Demon God. See this pathetic cycle for what it is! Do you really want to spend your lives repeating the mistakes of your parents, living so absurdly and emptily?’

‘The sea is already dead; it is a grave dug for you the moment you were born. You might as well leave with me. You help me reclaim my territory, and I will grant you a glorious life—one completely different from any other Naga.’

The young Nagas were fired up, becoming her most loyal guards.

They didn’t know what the shore looked like; they simply believed that what she said was the truth of “how the world should be.”

Liya eventually fulfilled her promise.

Not a single young Naga regretted leaving that deep sea.

They stopped growing, but they remained forever young, forever passionate, and forever reckless.

But Liya had also broken her promise in the end.

She had promised these children that she would take them to the northern borders of the Empire to gather a handful of snow, so they could proudly show it to their parents upon their triumphant return.

“No, this is too strange. I have to go see for myself—how could adult Nagas possibly leave the Demon Realm?”

Liya was particularly curious.

Setting aside the adult Nagas’ innate hatred and resistance toward anything outside their “comfort zone,” the Elders’ strict command “to never stop working” was an insurmountable chasm.

Back then, as a once-in-a-millennium genius caster of the Demon Race, she had only found a way to combat the Fourth Demon God after thorough investigation and pouring through countless ancient texts.

She had first sneaked into the Empire to steal a large number of [Mind Crystals], then traded a massive price for a [Sage’s Stone], commissioning the finest human craftsmen to forge them into an [Anti-Psychic Interference Bracelet].

Before she even made her move, she had laid down numerous [Chain Ruin] magic circles around the Elder’s sleeping grounds.

Then, the moment the Elder woke up, she had joined forces with all the rebellious Nagas to blast the Elder’s physical body into dust.

This way, the “Demon God’s tentacles,” having lost their physical anchor, would be weakened to less than ten percent of their strength, their vitality constantly draining.

Only when the tentacles were sufficiently weak could Liya swing her sword and sever them completely.

With such a powerful opponent, Liya believed that even if the Hero stepped up, he wouldn’t necessarily have an easy time.

The mental attacks of the Fourth Demon God were the perfect counter to a meathead like the Hero.

So the question was… how did these adult Nagas escape the Elder’s ban, abandon their work, and run outside?

It’s not like someone one-shotted the Elder, right?

Hahaha, impossible! Absolutely impossible!