Myriad Devils-Chapter 189: The dimension’s malevolent nurturing

Dust particles...

The remains of the daemon...

Anon’s vision saw each particle shimmer with a faint crimson light. A strange breeze picked them up into the air and brought them toward Anon.

They circled him three times before seeping into his pores.

He did not show any reaction, however the pain was naturally very present. His bones quaked and groaned. It was as if they were being broken and shattered, then reforged, time and time again.

At the same time, the two black clouds separated.

Due to the connection between his own, Anon was already standing on his drifter cloud. The cloud slowly floated above the ownerless black cloud.

The ownerless black cloud shrunk in size as Anon’s black cloud descended, completely swallowing it in one go.

With a bang, his drifter cloud fell onto the crimson sea’s surface.

The crimson sea was awakened.

The waters stirred to life, bubbling like hot oil. Under his intrigued gaze, the crimson sea formed enveloped the entire drifter cloud, along with Anon.

.....

Anon was falling.

His face expressed the comfort he felt.

The world embraced his every being. Pain from the dust particles had subsided, and was instead replaced by waves of comfort.

He had the strength to move, but he did not want to. His muscles did not even twitch. At this point, his entire being felt as if it had liquified.

In this space, a crimson backdrop painted over the world.

To best describe this transformation... Anon, who felt as if he was a pool of black liquid, observed as a crimson fluid was injected into his very being.

This fluid was harmless.

Not only did it bring forth waves of comfort, but from an absolutely fundamental level, the crimson fluid nurtured the pool of black liquid.

.....

Anon stood on a platform.

Behind him was a flight of black stairs that descended into the mortal world, and some distance in front of him was a flight of stairs coated in a deep shade of purple.

This dark purple staircase led to a higher world, one that was fundamentally unlike the mortal world.

Unhesitatingly, Anon rushed toward the purple stairs.

His foot stepped onto the first one. Thereafter, an overwhelming yet profoundly indescribable sensation plunged into the depths of his body.

He took another step, and then a third.

Tenth, hundredth, three hundredth...

Eventually, he could not go on again.

.....

Opening his eyes, he found that the world had changed again. He had returned to the inverted sky dimension after undergoing a transformation on the most essential level.

The black cloud had similarly transformed. Now a deep shade of purple, it spanned up to 1,200 meters in diameters across the crimson sea’s surface.

There was a faint chuckle that escaped Anon’s lips. The whispers that entered his ears, urging him to slaughter, slowly died down.

"Interesting."

Stretching his limbs, his body trembled slightly. Taking a seat on the fluffy cloud, Anon mulled over the previous experiences.

’Was that the dimension’s consciousness?’

When the drifter cloud mutates, it attracts the dimension’s consciousness itself into descent. The dimension embraces and nurtures the drifter and his cloud.

On the one hand, the drifter’s soul and cloud is nurtured, but on the other hand, the energy used in the nurturing process was a slaughterous, malevolent energy.

To grow stronger within the dimension, it meant being nurtured by the dimension. To be nurtured meant to slaughter, and thereafter, through slaughter, achieve salvation.

This is progress, but it is also a type of damnation.

It was rare to be such a genius that one does not lose a battle in the process of becoming an Empyrean drifter.

And it was even rarer for said genius to have the capacity to resist the corruption afflicted to their soul in the process of nurturing an Empyrean Cloud.

Still, no difficulty previously mentioned, could compare to the nurturing of a Primordial Cloud.

Anon rubbed his chin, in thought.

At this time, his Mature Cloud was yet to resonate with a similar Mature Cloud. The longer this resonance took to occur, the more unpredictable the strength of the opponent becomes.

His Mature Cloud covered 1,200 meters in diameters.

With the length of time taken to locate another Mature Cloud that resonates with his own, he could very well end up crossing paths with an opponent with a cloud that was 1,300 or even 1,500 meters in diameters.

It was important to note that, upon the evolution of his drifter cloud, his very soul had underwent a qualitive transformation.

It was two to three times more powerful than before.

Originally, his soul, besides nurturing his willpower, and less important things to the current him such as comprehension ability and overall intellect, his soul lacked any meaningful assistance to his fighting capabilities.

It was unlike his fleshy body that directly correlated to physical strength, and his spirit which correlated with magical abilities.

However, he only understand everything in the moment that the sea of demonic power had transformed into a drop devoured by his soul.

That daemon had blessed Anon more than it could even begin to imagine.

Humans wielded stellar cosmic energy.

This was an energy originating from the vast expanse of the cosmic space. It was akin to a basin that assisted the spirit in wielding principle power.

Through it, the process of summoning principle power was easier, basically allowing the attainment of twice the results in exchange for half the effort.

Daemons were different.

True magic allowed daemons, through the power of their soul, to draw power from the infernal realm, or incomprehensibly powerful creatures from the infernal realm.

These creatures, Anon could not yet comprehend their existence. In the old world, the title of gods was a fitting description.

Through his soul, the daemon wielded curse magic, among other forms of magic which assisted in its survivability and so on.

Usually, it would be unlikely for humans or other creatures to wield said power without any special treasure, however...

Anon’s dark soul had swallowed that ungodly force and devoured the secrets behind the workings of true magic.

At the very least, Anon had some understanding over cruse magic.

With some spell signs, and with his soul as fuel, Anon could wield the power of curse magic without any special magic treasure, like an actual daemon!

’My soul seems quite aligned with this true magic.’ Anon pondered in silence.

His subconscious told him...

Ever since he awakened his second principle, his subconscious had been a lot more active. Most of the times, he was certain that his subconscious was correct.

That instinctive hunch.

Now too, he knew that his dark soul made utilizing this true magic much easier.

If the spell signs for true magic was akin to stellar cosmic energy, then his soul was akin to a spirit that was highly aligned to a principle.

However, in this case, that principle was true magic itself.

Much less curse magic, there were many other, more powerful forms of magic out there.

The cloud severing spear materialized before him. He willed, and the spear rested afloat in front of him. He then traced his fingers along the spear’s body.

Wherever his finger traced over, a dark purple pattern radiating unholy power was left flickering before disappearing into the spear.

His fingers continued to trace over the spear for some time.

When he finally finished, the entire spear glowed with a deep purple hue. Casually wielding it in his hands, wherever it went, a trail of demonic residue was left in its wake.

’With this, I won’t need to draw any spell signs amidst battle.’ Anon nodded approvingly.

After all, that daemon was not a physical specimen.

It rather opted to keep at a distance and draw spells from afar, relying on that and his fleshy sword.

Speaking of...

The spear deconstructed and etched itself into Anon’s right hand. His gaze shifted away and attempted to locate the daemon’s treasure.

Such a weapon that had consumed millions of living creatures. An evil treasure with an incomprehensibly high kill count.

It should not be easily wielded.

Luckily, Anon was kind hearted, willing to sacrifice his own comfort rather than watch as someone else stained themself by the wickedness contained within that treasure.

’A magic tool that amplifies curse magic. It resonates with the curse magic in the infernal realm, allowing the soul to attract even more power through magic spells.’

The ungodly force was not something the daemon could wield as he was. Not only had that attack given him a severe backlash, it had also damaged its soul.

For daemons, with injuries on the soul level, physical injuries would likely not heal until the soul had recovered. Hence, if the soul was injured, a daemon was much easier to kill.

Anon did not need to do anything, and the daemon was already deteriorating into dust.

Only because of a moment of sadism, did he accelerate the daemon’s deterioration via curse magic.

But with its soul injuries, its end was neigh anyway.

The Mature Cloud was noticeably thicker than the Nascent Cloud. It had even covered most of the flesh sword, aura and all.

Still, with a single sweep of his gaze, Anon located the evil treasure.

He circled the strange-looking sword more than once, thoughtfully pondering in silence. Upon picking it up, Anon was slightly taken aback.

Though it had such a strange expression, it seemed completely normal. The eye was sealed shut and it did not even radiate any kind of evil aura.

Anon slashed at the empty air a couple of times, still mulling over the sword. He observed the shut eye thoughtfully.

’Is it because I’m not a daemon, it’s not reacting? Or is it...’

As he wondered, whilst his right hand held the flesh sword, his left wrote magic spells in the empty air, instigating a resonance.

Through his soul, he attracted curse magic from the infernal realm. Immediately after, the flesh sword released a faint wailing sound.

At the same time, Anon’s surroundings began to change!