A Shadow Demon.
Born with a body of shadows, they can cast various shadow spells as easily as breathing, blending into the dark and launching lethal, surprise attacks like a venomous snake waiting for its moment.
If a normal player obtained such a powerful talent, they would likely become a top-tier assassin, moving freely through enemy territory, dancing on the edge of a blade, and reaping lives in absolute silence.
But… the Shadow Demon is a demon from the Second Demon Realm.
So, this group of guys takes perfectly good shadow abilities and plays them like cowardly losers who only know how to hide in the grass.
Liya has dealt with Shadow Demons quite a bit.
Because she is a Blood Demon from the First Demon Realm, and the first and second realms are mortal enemies, constantly at war, she rarely went a day without encountering Shadow Demons sneaking over to cause chaos after she crowned herself Demon King.
Circumstances forced Liya to develop a keen intuition for spotting Shadow Demons.
For example, she is currently staring at the shadow of that giant rock in the distance, finding it more and more out of place—the mismatched, jagged edges triggered Liya’s “coward radar.”
The problem is—the Hero was taken as a sacrifice by that Demon Ascension Ritual.
If the Hero were still by her side, she naturally wouldn’t fear any lurkers, but now she is suffering from the cold violence of the Demon Gods!
This situation is like being separated by life and death.
Liya forced herself to stay calm, asking with a peaceful and natural tone, “Did you finish over there? Do you need my help?”
“The situation is a bit complicated.”
Joen looked at the crimson moon outside the window, wearing a grave expression as he took a deep breath, “The enemy’s form of existence is beyond imagination. I don’t know how to deal with it for the time being.”
“Ah?” Liya was stunned.
Are there enemies in this world that Joen cannot handle?
But immediately, Liya reacted.
Zyra is merely a follower of a former hero; even with a Demon Ascension, it would be impossible to make Joen this vigilant.
The “enemy” in Joen’s mouth is likely another ancient Great Demon… or even a Demon God!
“Let’s not talk about that for now. You said outside? Where outside? I have already arrived outside the castle and patrolled around these giant claws, why didn’t I see you?”
Joen’s voice came through again.
“Hm… it’s a little trick I used to put on a show, opening a boundary between the inside and outside of the ritual.”
Liya explained, “I am outside the boundary of the Demon Ascension Ritual, and used some methods to allow communication between both sides.”
In reality, it was just Pupu’s [Link], which she fused with the [Telepathy] spell and temporarily modified.
Fortunately, she had a massive amount of Heroic Magic left in her body, and that overbearing power was truly able to force its way through the boundary, allowing her to luckily connect with Joen.
As a former Demon King, Liya naturally still remembers those high-level spells.
It’s just that the physiology of a demon is vastly different from a Pupu, and to cast familiar magic with this body requires a complete structural readjustment, and what she lacks most right now is experimental resources and time.
Only magic that overlaps with Pupu’s racial talents is easy to modify.
“Lily is capable of such clever little tricks.”
Joen chuckled lightly.
Knowing that Lily was safe, and not even in this dangerous space, the stone in Joen’s heart landed, and he was no longer tense.
“Mm-hmm… Friend, I have things to attend to on my end. You finish up the trouble over there as soon as possible, and then… come out and play with me.”
Liya’s tone remained calm, though she was practically crying on the inside.
A dead shadow will never move under a fixed light source—because she noticed that the patch of shadow she was seventy percent suspicious of had just flickered slightly; now, she was one hundred percent certain.
There is a sinister coward crouching there!
Ending the call, Liya fell silent for a few seconds before she suddenly made a decision: she couldn’t sit and wait for death, she had to take the initiative!
Based on her knowledge of Shadow Demon habits, the longer she waited, the higher the likelihood of a probing attack, and with her current fragile little body, she probably wouldn’t even be able to withstand a single spell.
“Friend over there, why hide and sneak around? I’m someone who loves making friends, so why not… show yourself and have a chat?”
Liya looked toward that abnormal patch of shadow, her tone tinged with amusement, issuing an invitation with composure.
The shadow remained perfectly still.
If it could be tricked out with just a few words, it wouldn’t be a coward.
Liya thought for two seconds, then simply walked over to the giant rock, moved a relatively flat stone bench, used the stone as a table, and sat down in a leisurely manner to wait.
Not long after, a mass of dreamlike black smoke rose from the shadows of the rock crevices.
The mist condensed, transforming into a beautiful woman with a cold, glamorous aura and a well-proportioned figure.
She did not sit but looked down at Liya, scrutinizing her carefully.
“Demon King Lia is dead.”
She spoke expressionlessly, the very first sentence aimed at killing the conversation.
“You are an impostor.”
Liya was panicking inside, but maintained the composure of a king on the surface.
She smiled, “Even a cunning fox has more than one nest. How do you know if I truly died, or if I sloughed off this skin like a snake to escape?”
“The soul was naturally stacked with seven Cursed Kiss Legends.”
Maive’s voice was frigid.
“Demon King Lia killed seven God-chosen seeds. Although the gods cannot sense these ‘outsiders,’ they can clearly sense the existence of the curse. No matter how the body is modified, those curses will accompany you like maggots on a corpse.”
“And now,” she said slowly, “the God tells me the curse has vanished. This means Demon King Lia has died—a death as miserable as having one’s soul scattered to the winds.”
The expression on Liya’s face froze.
God-chosen seeds, outsiders, Cursed Kiss Legends…
How many secrets have you old fogies been hiding from us!
Also, the disappearance of the cursed marks means she died? Could it be caused by soul-transfer magic? But it sounds like the curse is attached to the soul level, otherwise, there wouldn’t be the saying that “modifying the body is useless.”
[Wait, that’s not right.]
Liya suddenly realized that she did indeed have a near-death experience once—it was an experience akin to being “reborn from the ashes.”
When she had just transformed into a Pupu, her Magic Power was exhausted, and the Hero channeled energy to her.
She nearly died from that violent power, but finally managed to pull through, saved by the Hero, and even adapted to the presence of the Heroic Magic.
Perhaps, at that very moment, the Hero’s magic helped her wash away the marks of the curse upon her soul.
Recalling carefully, it seemed that before that day, she had indeed been incredibly unlucky.
Governing the Demon Realm went poorly, the counterattack on the Empire hit a stat monster that felt like it was cheating, and she was betrayed by her own kind in every way; after finally bringing out her trump card “Time Stop,” she ran into the Hero saying “I’ve learned it”; she hadn’t even finished her rebirth magic before the Hero came knocking; the Secret Vault of the Demon King she had finally recovered was snatched by the Hero, and the body she randomly received was so weak she almost got shot to death by that foul elf…
And ever since that day, her luck seemed to have actually improved.
For a moment, Liya didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Looking back at the terrible first half of her life, her heart was filled with mixed emotions.
She keenly caught from terms like “God-chosen seeds” and “Cursed Kiss Legends” that the Demon Gods and these ancient Great Demons did not have a friendly attitude toward her; in fact, it was quite negative.
So she immediately adjusted her strategy, attempting to win favor:
“These so-called God-chosen seeds, since I killed them, it means I am more valuable than them. I can be loyal too~! Why not consider me~?”
“You, a mere Pupu, are putting on quite a show.”
Maive laughed in spite of herself.
She shook her head and said offhandedly, “If any other demon had performed such an earth-shattering feat and seized the Demon King Seat, the Seven Gods might have broken past conventions to grant them supreme grace, turning them into ‘The Seven Gods’ Choice,’ honed into a blade to annihilate the Empire.”
“Unfortunately, Demon King Lia is an outsider.”
Outsider—she could roughly guess that this was the term for a reincarnator.
“So what if I’m an outsider?” Liya couldn’t help but say urgently.
It wasn’t that she hadn’t thought there might be other reincarnators in the Demon Realm, but she never imagined the identity of a “reincarnator” had dug such a massive hole for her!
“Outsiders do not enter the Source.”
Maive said lightly, “Whether it be Gods, divine messengers, or even the God Realms where the pious spirits are kept, outsiders cannot touch them.”
“Demon King Lia was an outsider, naturally a heaven-forsaken person. The gods cannot sense them, and they cannot sense the gods; a chasm that cannot be crossed lies between the two by nature.”
“And,” Maive smiled, a flash of mockery in her eyes, “as far as I know, the ‘Source’ hates outsiders. Not a single soul of an outsider has ever been able to be born in the main world, and those who try to ascend to godhood are killed by the ‘Source’ at any cost.”
“Two thousand six hundred years ago… there was such an example.”
“There was an outsider with exceptional abilities who left the Demon Realm to go to the human race. Relying on wholehearted compassion and a vision that transcended the era, they established a vast and powerful human empire. At that time, my Lord and the other Demon Gods were quite interested in this little guy and provided a lot of help through indirect means.”
“That outsider suppressed the Four Great Orthodox Religions, called themselves the ‘Emperor,’ made the citizens of the kingdom believe in them, viewed them as the only correct path, the only truth, and imitated the human ancestors to start the path of ascension.”
“The very day they succeeded in the ascension… the anger of the Source was something even my Lord could feel. My Lord was forced to send out numerous divine messengers to eradicate the Emperor’s believers by any means necessary.”
“Until the faith of the ‘Emperor,’ and even the traces of their existence, were completely wiped from the world, the tremors of the Source finally subsided.”
“Since then, ‘Never help an outsider’ has been an unwritten iron law in the Abyss.”