The savagery of a demon, fused with a sliver of human rationality—
These two elements made up the soul of Orsaga.
Though his reasoning had long been tainted by the instincts of a demon, it also gave him a devil's cunning amidst the brutality. Unlike the majority of demons whose brawn dictated their brain, Orsaga was a rare case of the brain deciding the brawn.
But that didn't mean he was a coward. Quite the opposite.
A demon's very nature dictated that they could never be cowardly. After all, just crawling out from the banks of the River Stygian required slaughtering hundreds of one's own kind. The weak, the timid, the insufficiently ruthless—they were long since weeded out, consumed as nourishment for others. Trash never even had a chance to step foot on the shore.
For Orsaga, as long as the reward was sufficient, gambling with his life was completely acceptable. After all, even ordinary humans could die just by stepping out to buy groceries.
Life, by nature, was a constant dance with risk.
And if that was the case for humans, then how much more so for someone like Orsaga, living in the Abyss—a place where life was free, and death was random?
To him, risk was just an unavoidable factor of existence.
That said, he wouldn't recklessly gamble his life without even a glimpse of potential benefit.
Either the temptation had to be irresistible, enough to drown out any sense of danger, or he'd wait until he had some confidence of success.
And once he did, he'd strike without hesitation.
——
Strolling through the forest, Orsaga might not have been a little girl out picking mushrooms, but he was, at the very least, a diligent and hardworking demon.
Anyone he came across—whether passing by, hiding, playing dead, whole or wounded, big or small—if they weren't dead yet, he graciously helped them along. Consider it a kind gesture from a conscientious demon, sending them off with no regrets and releasing them from the troubles of the mortal world.
Orsaga's eyes narrowed as he came to a halt.
Despite the many obstacles, his vision picked up on a living being actively approaching him. Judging by the energy it emitted, the creature wasn't much weaker than himself—meaning, under normal circumstances, their strength was roughly on par.
But Orsaga was no ordinary demon. He was a Demon with cheat codes, and with the abilities granted by his system, his actual combat power far exceeded others of the same rank.
Still, he wasn't arrogant enough to underestimate opponents in the Abyss. He understood the price of overconfidence. Even with a rough idea of the opponent's strength, he remained cautious, adjusting his magical energy accordingly. After all, if he had energy vision, who was to say the other side didn't have energy suppression?
The Abyss was full of freaks—you never knew when a powerful demon might show up who could crush you with one hand despite being the same level.
Silently channeling power within himself, his tail swayed from side to side, waiting for the creature to come closer.
He didn't have to wait long. Almost as if the creature sensed it had been discovered, its previously steady, unhurried pace suddenly quickened.
Whoosh!
CRACK!!
With the sharp sound of something cutting through the air at high speed, a demonic plant—several dozen meters tall—exploded at the midpoint of its trunk, splinters and sap flying everywhere.
From within, a 1.4-meter-long wooden spear shot out like a missile, its edge gleaming with deadly precision. It flew at Orsaga's chest with blinding speed, aiming to nail him straight into the ground.
He didn't try to block it—dodging to the side instead.
Blocking would have been a pointless waste of energy—and he had no idea if the spear was poisoned.
Thump, thump, thump...
Heavy footsteps, like those of a warhorse, echoed through the air as a figure emerged from the dust and muddy drizzle raised by the fallen plant.
The creature was roughly the same height as Orsaga, with a reindeer-like head that bore the face of a middle-aged man. Its eyes gleamed with bloodlust, and saliva dripped constantly from its mouth. Antlers adorned with bloodied eyeballs—some still leaking fluid—crowned its head, clearly freshly plucked.
Its upper body resembled a human's, complete with two arms. But below the waist, it had the body of a warhorse. Several spears were slung across its back, and its frame was covered in taut, powerful muscles—leaving no doubt about its physical strength.
Inhaling the scent wafting from the creature, Orsaga found it oddly familiar. Fragments of inherited memory flickered in his mind. Then, a bloodthirsty grin spread across his face.
Locking eyes with the beast, he rasped out in the guttural language of demons:
"A mutated, demonized lifeform trying to become a half-demon? Looks like you're not just intelligent—you've even awakened some form of inherited memory. Didn't expect to run into such a rare specimen..."
This was the first time Orsaga had ever spoken to another being. Ever since his birth, none of the creatures he encountered had been capable of meaningful communication. Even those Minor demons with rudimentary intelligence were more beast than sentient, making them useless for conversation.
But this one was different.
Despite the madness in its eyes, there was a spark of intellect—something no wild beast possessed. The faint aura of a Transmutation Ritual that clung to its body made one thing clear: it was far from dumb. A creature without intelligence could never perform such a ritual.
"Mutated demon?"
The creature blinked in surprise, clearly not expecting a demon to be capable of speech. Normally, only Lesser Demons could communicate—demonic intellect only stabilized at that tier, allowing them to suppress their primal instincts and function more like sentient beings than wild animals.
But this discovery pleased it.
Thanks to the Transmutation Ritual pulsing within its body, it could clearly sense the astonishingly pure bloodline coursing through Orsaga—perhaps even purer than that of many Lesser Demons.
'It had to be due to some mutation. What luck—a perfect offering!'
Orsaga, sensing the malevolent intent leaking from the creature, only smiled wider. If the beast saw him as a prize catch, Orsaga saw it as a treasure trove.
The Transmutation Ritual it carried was a form of magical rite. In a place like the Demonbone Forest, where external inheritance was impossible, such a ritual could only stem from inherited bloodline memory.
Once activated, the ritual could transform the user's bloodline.
Thanks to his powerful soul, Orsaga could clearly sense the refined demon essence and purified bloodline power within it.
This was the creature's carefully hoarded resource—meant to evolve itself into a hybrid half-demon and ascend to the level of a Lesser Demon.
To Orsaga, that was the equivalent of a walking treasure chest!
Most demons might be tempted to absorb that refined essence into their own blood to boost purity—but Orsaga wasn't interested. Adding such low-grade blood would only pollute his own superior lineage. It wasn't worth the risk.
His bloodline had already been enhanced by the system and was far beyond his peers.
So to Orsaga, the best course of action was simple: kill it. Devour its flesh. Rip out its soul. Convert the bloodline and essence stored in its ritual into evolution points.
Judging from the creature's accumulation, it was worth several times the evolution points of a typical Minor demon.
At that moment, both sides felt like fortune had smiled upon them.
Right now, what they wanted most was to drain every last drop of each other's blood and devour every shred of soul. In the Abyss, peaceful coexistence between two intelligent beings in direct conflict was something that only happened in dreams.
They shared a smile—purely for appearances.
Then the enemy struck first.
Muscles bulged beneath its skin, veins bulging as it gripped a wooden spear so tightly it left an impression in the hard wood.
The moment the spear was thrown, Orsaga even heard the sonic boom that followed its breakneck release.
Not to be outdone, Orsaga retaliated with a volley—three blazing fire arrows nearly a meter long screamed through the air.
BOOM! BOOM!!
In the blink of an eye, two of the arrows collided with the flying spear midair, detonating into a fiery explosion that reduced the spear to ashes, scattering a rain of fire over a dozen meters around.
The third fire arrow, however, tore straight through the air, continuing unimpeded toward the creature's head!
Shocked, the beast's heart skipped a beat. It had never seen a demon capable of firing three fire arrows in an instant—at most, they could only shoot them one by one in rapid succession.
With the fire arrow already upon him, and his spear mid-wind-up for another throw, he had no choice but to lower it again.
He knew there was no dodging it at this distance.
So he coated his body in magic, gripped the shaft of the spear tightly, and stabbed forward with all his might to intercept the fire arrow.
The moment they clashed, he felt the arrow trying to pierce through his magic barrier.
That was the fire arrow's special property: Penetration. Unlike a fireball that exploded on contact, fire arrows were designed to punch through a target before detonating—ideal for breaking through armor.
Understanding this, the beast immediately poured power into a magical burst, forcing the arrow to explode prematurely in an effort to minimize damage.
But things weren't that simple.
With a thunderous bang, a massive force surged down the length of the spear and into his body. The vibrations were so violent that he almost lost his grip.
He didn't know the reason—it was resonance caused by the wild shaking of the spear's other end. If only he had gripped it closer to the tip, the impact would've been far less severe.
Before he could recover from the blast—
His vision blacked out.
A sharp, sudden pain erupted in his brain, as if it were being ground into mush. Blood gushed uncontrollably from his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.
And the battle... had only just begun.