“I just said that I’m not a lust demon!” Damn it, what will it take for you to believe me. An all female race like the lust demons simply aren’t my cup of tea…oh wait, if they are willing to be my girlfriend, I won’t object to that.
“I’ve never heard of a thief calling himself a thief.” She threw out that irrefutable analogy and instantly shutting down my objection. She continued her inexplicable soliloquy without paying me any heed.
“In the past, any male who dared to touch me would be put to death immediately, someone like you would’ve died multiple times over. Also, those who stared at me for too long would have their eyes gouged out.”
“…” What the heck, are you some kind of sacred maiden! Putting aside the fact that you execute anyone who touches you, what’s with the eye gouging! Exactly how precious are you?
“Of course, that’s all in the past.” As she said this, she sadly shook her head. “While you’re a natural born lust demon, I doubt you know much about your race since you were born in the Blood Sea. I’ll give you a quick rundown so that you don’t end up getting your gender mixed up.”
“Who are you calling gender confused! I’m a male through and through, a female loving male!” This question of gender was driving me insane but no matter how I explained myself, she simply didn’t believe me.
“Alright, alright. I get that you’re a male lust demon. Just settle down and listen to me, who knows, your thing might actually grow out once you do so…pfft…”
It’s one thing to be snide…but you actually laughed at it yourself….
According to her, lust demons had three branches namely, the carnal branch, beguiling branch and the combat branch. While they were called branches, they weren’t a subspecies of the lust demon race. Instead, they were methods of survival.
Firstly, the carnal branch of lust demons. They formed the largest branch of lust demons, roughly 70% of the entire population fell under this category. As for what they did, the name says it all.
Basically, the common view of lust demons originated from this branch. In fact, they were the reason why humans considered lust demons the avatar of carnal desires…technically, they aren’t wrong about that either.
The combat strength of the lust demons weren’t particularly strong. Even though they controlled darkness and flames, their forte lied in their beguiling talents. Unfortunately for them, hell wasn’t a conducive environment for them. To be exact, their forte didn’t do much for their combat strength, in fact, their strength was lacking compared to the other races.
Lust demons were an all female evolutionary path where there was only one requirement for its members—-being female.
This was the reason why they were gifted with an alluring appearance and beguiling talents. At the end of the day however, combat is still the main method of survival in hell.
Due to the fierce competition in hell, it was much harder for female devils to survive. This was especially true for the more beautiful ones where their beauty ended up becoming a burden instead.
Their beauty often made them a target for enslavement by stronger devils. It was in such an environment that the carnal branch was born.
Since they were naturally weaker than the other devils, they decided to rely on the most primal method to secure their survival.
Carnal lust demons would often serve a stronger devil, becoming a plaything for them. At times, they might even turn the tables on these stronger devils and end up assuming the dominant role.
Simply put, it was using one’s body to please another, in return, they were given a safe environment to live in. There were even lust demons who used their bodies to dominate male devils.
They were kinda like a friend with benefits or a cheap prostitute and in some cases, like a female bandit chief who controlled her subordinates with her body.
As for the beguiling branch, they roughly made up 25% of the lust demons in hell. This type of lust demon tended to specialize in psychic magic and were easily able to beguile the more simple minded devils. (Abyssal devils, flame demons and even some greater devils who were befuddled by their desires.)
This form of beguilement was a combination of their individual charm and psychic magic. Every member of the beguiling branch were peerless beauties as well as master level mesmers (mages who specialised in psychic magic).
They were not only able to make a person like them with a glance, some of their victims end up falling irreversibly in love with them at first sight, regardless of whether they are female or male.
These lust demons tended to have what was known as “queen syndrome”…which means they had a very high probability to creating a harem for themselves…furthermore, they didn’t discriminate between men and women, with them as the dominant role.
The biggest difference between the two was a matter of choice. Carnal lust demons were either playthings or actively seduced others, on the other hand, beguiling lust demons were able to toy with others.
Combat lust demons were the most unique of the three. Unlike their kin, they possessed a terrifying gift for combat. If they were humans, they would probably be known as valkyries.
Their combat strength was so terrifying, they actually equalled the fallen angels who were known as the strongest devil race in hell. It wouldn’t be a stretch to call them the reapers of the battlefield.
Their claim to prominence lied in their perfect control over flames and darkness. Combined with their peerless agility, they were able to overwhelm their enemies in close and long ranged combat.
Their beauty and affinity with psychic magic allowed them to charm their opponents with merely a stare…coupled with their control over darkness and shadows, these lust demons were the perfect assassins. After all, with their control over shadows, who else could blend into the shadows as well as them?
The biggest weakness of the combat branch was their rarity. Within the entire population, only 0.5% of lust demons were of the combat branch.
Similar to human society, there was a big difference in prestige between genius and mediocrity. As such, you could imagine the joy I felt when Violet Snow praised me.
“I thought you were a carnal/beguiling lust demon at first, but it turns out I was wrong and you’re actually a combat lust demon.”
My face practically radiated confidence as I beamed and put on a “I’m really strong” pose. “Is it because I’m so adept at combat?”
Seeing my confident expression, her mouth cracked into a rare grin: “Actually, the conclusion is that I still don’t detect any trace of a male devil on you.”
“…” Will it kill you to cut me slack!
Without giving me time to wallow in depression, she immediately followed this up with a serious question: “What’s your next plan?”
“Like you said, those two three-star demon childs are too much for us, at least for now. Even with our equipment, their numbers is more than enough to crush us. In that case, we have no choice but to keep wandering around.”
I lightly rubbed the devil horn on my head, hoping to alleviate the headache I was getting from all the mulling. Two seconds later, I finally came to a decision: “We’ll go back to our original plan of recruiting the dogmen. Once we do so, we can proceed to subjugate the other races and bolster our troops till we can stand toe to toe with that devil clan.”
“After we subjugate that clan, we can search the surrounding regions for other clans to conquer while we look for the exit. The main goal is to get out of the Prison of the Dead as soon as possible.”
“Why are you in such a hurry to leave? The Prison of the Dead isn’t a place you can leave so easily.” Despite her apprehension, I could detect a hint of longing in her voice. I could tell that she actually wanted to leave this damned place just as much as I did but she merely didn’t have the confidence to do so.
Judging from her tone, it seemed like she was in it for the long haul.
That reminds me, exactly why did I run away from home in the first place? Oh right, it was because I was powerless and I didn’t want to become a burden on my family. I didn’t want Roscar to tire himself out, day after day, for my sake. I didn’t want all his hard earned money to be wasted on my second magical examination.
Nicole even delayed her admission into warrior school because of this; every single penny was kept aside for my sake…
Furthermore, if she actually left for school, my powerless self would be an easy target for the village hooligans…why did I have such a delicate looking face…sigh, there’s just so much pressure on me…
More importantly, while I’m messing around here, Sares is still by her side, watching and waiting for his chance…what’s worse was that bastard Roscar actually liked this kid…I just don’t get it. What’s so great about Sares? He’s just a little talented and a tiny bit better looking than most people!
I’m pretty good looking myself! Well, things are different now, I’ve attained a power of my own. This time, I’ll get back to the western human realms and snatch her back with my own two hands!
She’s already 13 this year, if I don’t hurry back within the next few years, she will have reached the marrying age. At that time, Sares might just…
The last thing I want to deal with is a couple of Sares juniors…
My heart pounded, sending the blood rushing to my head. As the fires of anxiety burned within me, I jumped to my feet and replied, my voice just as fiery as my mood, “ In a hurry? How can I not be in a hurry…if given the choice, I would immediately sprout a pair of wings and immediately fly out of this prison!”
“Err…even if you sprout a pair of wings, you can’t fly out of here…”
“I know that! You don’t have to explain it to me!” It was just a figure of speech.
Because of my sudden outburst, a number of subordinates started peeking in my direction. My eyes swept across the area, staring down anyone who dared to look at me: “ What are you looking at? Go back to sleep!”
Violet Snow stared at me dumbly, seemingly confused by my sudden agitation.
“Forget it, this isn’t something I can explain to you.” There was no way I could tell her that I’m a transmigrator, or that I was a 40 year old sage (virgin) or that my wish was to grow up into a real adult. How could I possibly tell her that!
Not being one to badger a person, she left me to my devices upon seeing my unstable mood.
As I stood there, alone, I was overcome by a sense of boredom and decided to look through the grimoire once more. The familiar words of the grimoire filled my vision as I flipped through the pages, suddenly I noticed a spell that I hadn’t tried out yet. It was the new spell I attained when I evolved, Summon Skeleton Archer.
Reading through the words, I was reminded of that terrifying encounter with the skeletal assassin. Initially, he was merely an unassuming skeleton archer but all that changed when my subordinates cornered him, forcing him to reveal his prowess.
That encounter had traumatized me deeply, causing me a great deal of worry for a period of time. Given his strength, I was actually afraid that he might come back to assassinate me.
Due to a variety of reasons, undead magic was put on the back burner despite its obvious usability in the Prison of the Dead. Not only was my affinity with it worse than my darkness and flame affinity, I simply didn’t have the mana to spare after spending it on crafting weapons. As such, all it could do was gather dust till now.
Despite all that I had I just said, it didn’t mean that I couldn’t devote a little time to a useful spell like Summon Skeleton Archer. Not only did it address a problem that has been plaguing me for a while, being in the Prison of the Dead meant that I didn’t need to search for a skeleton before I test it out.
I stood there, grimoire in hand and began channeling my mana. As I did so, the magical array lit up, growing ever brighter with each unit of mana I used up. At the side, the light show ended up drawing the attention of a curious Violet Snow who turned around to watch.
Truth be told, it was kind of a shame I couldn’t utilize the grimoire fully. It not only had the effect of reducing mana consumption, it also empowered my undead spells.
However, my affinity with that field was simply too horrendous. Furthermore, necromancers weren’t well looked upon in the western human realms. If it wasn’t for these two points, I would’ve definitely switched my main focus onto undead magic.
Ten seconds later, the radiant green glow of the array began to die down. All of a sudden, a bony hand broke through the bone floor with a distinct crack. An instant later, a second hand broke through the floor, this one gripping a bone bow. It arced its bony joints and pushed itself out of the ground in a strange sight that reminded me of a mud monster appearing out of a pool of mud.
Slowly but surely, the skeletal hands dragged its entire body out of the ground, revealing a relatively normal looking skeleton archer.
My eyes swept over the newcomer from top to toe, trying to notice anything unique about it.
That skeletal assassin was pretty unremarkable as well. While it hid among the other skeleton archers, one would never single it out at first glance. Only after careful inspection would you discover that it was slightly shorter and more slender than the rest. If I had to make a comparison, if the other archers were normal humans in life, then that assassin must’ve been an elf in life.
After all, the legends I’ve read all said that elves are shorter and more slender than an average human.
Elven rangers were known for their long ranged capabilities along with their excellent close combat strength. A strong ranger is also by a definition a terrifying killer. They had after all, a much longer lifespan than humans. This meant that they had more time to hone a variety of crafts compared to a human who could only focus on one field in their limited lifespan.
