“Know yourself and your enemy, and you will never be defeated in a hundred battles. No matter what the situation, information is always the most important…”
“First, at least figure out the number of enemies.”
“If there’s a whole organized squad living down there, and I charge in headfirst, wouldn’t that be game over for me?”
Liya pondered in her heart, making a swift decision.
Having started out in the Demon Realm—a wretched place where betrayal was as common as drinking water and gods walked everywhere—her nature was inherently cautious.
Otherwise, she could never have become a Demon King.
With that thought, a strand of Heroic Magic ignited, merging into her magic core.
A dense pink mist quickly enveloped Liya’s body.
The mist drifted away with the wind, and soon, the subtle fragrance of Pupu spread throughout the entire Castle.
All the scattered Pupu received the command embedded in the scent’s pheromones and gathered toward Liya.
Liya led the Pupu Legion she summoned to the lowest floor of the Castle, pouring into a very inconspicuous Servant Room.
In the upper right corner of the back wall, there was a small hole almost blended into the surroundings.
The Pupu who hadn’t returned had all gone through this passage.
“This should be the ventilation shaft of the Secret Chamber.”
Liya thought.
Blocking the vent was out of the question.
With this kind of Secret Chamber design, there wouldn’t be only one vent.
Some might even connect to the underground waterway.
If you stock up on high-calorie, easily preserved food, you could hide out for two or three months without any problem.
But if the goal was reconnaissance, Liya had a sudden inspiration and came up with a clever plan.
“Ha!”
Liya’s little face flushed pink again, and the Pupu fragrance fused with pheromones was released once more.
The Pupu in the room received the command without hesitation, and with a chorus of “gugi, gugi,” they hopped to the wall, stacking and squeezing together to form a mountain of Pupu.
Liya climbed up this “black, squishy mountain” on hands and feet, stood on the peak, and tiptoed into the ventilation shaft.
But she didn’t recklessly proceed.
Instead, she stopped at the entrance, melted her body into a puddle of pink water, and flowed to the other side of the shaft.
“Drip, drip.”
The pink Pupu-water slid down the wall bit by bit.
No one would ever guess that this puddle had come to gather information.
Liya was even more cunning.
She didn’t flow all the way through; instead, she left most of her Pupu clinging to the wall so that after gathering intelligence, she could quietly “flow” back.
If you weren’t looking closely, you’d never notice—just assume the water on the wall was slowly drying.
Not to mention, the Secret Chamber was lit only by two magic lamps.
To save energy, the light was dim, making her disguise all the more perfect.
Liya’s sneaky pink eyes scanned the room twice, and her heart leaped with joy.
An urgent desire to “seize this place” welled up inside her.
The Secret Chamber wasn’t large—about forty square meters.
There was a lot of stuff: stacks of glittering Imperial Kulen Standard Currency, some hard-to-fence jewels, but most importantly, what Liya craved—magic crystals—two whole crates of them!
Though they were mostly low-grade stockpiles, for Liya right now, it was nothing short of her first bucket of gold, crucial for accelerating her early development.
Even more valuable than this bounty, there were only two enemies inside the Secret Chamber.
One was an ordinary boy with no signs of training, not even looking like a spellcaster.
The other was a textbook noble—elegant, well-dressed, sturdy, with a solid foundation, clearly trained in physical and martial skills.
At his waist hung a gorgeous longsword, its hilt set with four high-purity magic crystals.
Liya quietly released the Pupu fragrance, summoning an earth-type Pupu.
This “vanguard general” slipped through the vent and leapt into the Secret Chamber.
The noble spellcaster immediately began a short chant, pointing his right hand at the earth Pupu, and uttered with commanding authority:
“Obliterate!”
The earth Pupu instantly froze, its leaping body crashing to the ground as the magic holding it together rapidly dispersed, melting it into a puddle of muddy water.
But Liya’s eyes lit up.
She saw it clearly.
This wasn’t “Obliterate” at all.
Such a fake!
It was obviously just the most basic Magic Suppression spell!
[Magic Suppression], a low-level spell of the Domination Sequence, suppresses the magic within a target by channeling one’s own magic, effectively severing their power.
Because the principle is simple, the effect crude, and it’s suitable for PvP between spellcasters, it’s often taught to nobles who lack talent but have stockpiled magic through resources—brute force over skill.
And since its magic application efficiency is low, few spellcasters specializing in other sequences choose it as a secondary discipline.
Liya guessed the opponent was probably a Domination-sequence Elementalist, or perhaps a Magic Swordsman or Battle Mage—nothing special, trained not by rigorous combat schools but by standard Noble Education.
This guy! Half-baked, but tough!
“Young Master Edward.”
At that moment, the boy who didn’t look like a noble spoke with worship and flattery.
“You’re amazing! To master a high-level spell like [Obliterate] at such a young age—you’re a true genius! You should be the Hero!”
“Shut up!”
Edward had no patience for flattery now.
He frowned, pacing anxiously.
“What the hell is going on? Has the Immortal Army gone mad?”
He muttered under his breath:
“The outer wall was breached in a minute, the Guard Team went silent in three… even if the entire Immortal Army attacked, it shouldn’t be this fast!”
[Could it be… the attackers weren’t just the Immortal Army, and my Ritual of Live Sacrifice to the God of Demons has been exposed?]
A sudden fear surged in Edward’s heart.
God of Demons, progenitor of the seven great demon realms, was a Forbidden existence even the Empire dared not mention.
But the more Forbidden, the greater the mysterious allure to those born noble.
Performing a Ritual of Live Sacrifice to the God of Demons to gain evil power was a fanatical hobby among black mages.
Of course, their operations were never this grand… nor meaningful.
As nobles, they had money, resources, the best local education, and Death Soldier bodyguards.
They didn’t lack for that little “power.”
But Edward was missing something crucial.
Happiness.
Noble life was too boring.
Dull, tedious, monotonous—besides spending money, studying, and playing with women, what could be more insipid?
In the second year he was sent to the imperial capital for further studies, Edward began to miss home.
Worse, having gone from a “local tyrant” to a “country bumpkin in the capital,” he lost the sense of superiority he’d always relied on.
It was then, at a private noble gathering, that he learned a Forbidden “entertainment” technique.
Ritual of Live Sacrifice.
By offering a fallen pure soul to the Mother of Pleasure, creator of the seventh demon realm, “Abyss of Desire,” one could receive endless ecstasy.
Those who tasted it claimed the pleasure was so great, they’d gladly die for it.
Edward tried it—and it was true.
He couldn’t forget it, day or night.
Later, he learned an advanced variation—before the sacrifice, the offering was modified to have both male and female organs, with nerves a hundred or thousand times more sensitive, and fitted with punishment magic tools used for prostitutes.
Then, during the offering, the “gift” would descend upon the sacrifice.
As the victim convulsed and died, the master could release a sensory link spell to taste the overwhelming pleasure that could obliterate consciousness.
Efficient, elegant, safe.
Edward attended such gatherings frequently in the imperial capital.
Over several years, he learned little advanced magic but became adept at bribing examiners, cheating, and striking poses to impress others.
After returning home, his longing for that pleasure remained.
He performed several secret offerings, found no one interfered, and grew bolder—studying from the high-end party organizers how to cultivate “advanced offerings.”
This boy was a carefully selected offering, whom he’d been cultivating for three months, nearly ready for harvest.
And now this disaster had struck.