City of Sin

Book 8, 51

Secret Of The Genesis

The stream brimming with origin energy curved past a small hill and formed a lake behind it, the demon lord lying within. The lake was quite shallow, exposing half of the demon lord’s body, but that was because a huge amount of the water being gathered here was being absorbed by the demon’s heart. It seemed like the dead demon was relying on the origin energy of Faelor to maintain the power of its heart.

This was the true secret of the Genesis. A layer of the abyss could support an archlord as well as dozens of lesser lords, but Faelor’s origin energy wasn’t nearly as powerful. A single lord had turned everything within thousands of kilometres barren just to maintain his dying heart.

Looking into the distance, Richard saw a deep trench extending from the lake into the distant fog. The tracks made it seem like the demon lord had crawled to this point before dying of exhaustion, the trench a memento of his life’s last journey.

Just what sort of being could kill a demon lord? And who built an array to absorb Faelor’s origin energy and maintain the lord’s heart? Richard swept through the surroundings with all of his senses, but he couldn’t find a single trace of life within a kilometre. He followed the trench a few dozen kilometres in, the surrounding temperature starting to rise quickly while the air started to smell strongly of sulphur and other poisons. By the time he was at the origin of the trench, only those at level 10 or above could move about freely.

He continued moving forward through the seemingly endless fog, relying on intuition and instinct until he eventually crossed through a dense wall and was met with a stunning view. In front of him was an ancient battlefield, millions of demons all lying on the ground in the last throes of their death. Their opponents were strange beings that looked like giant beetles, but while there were less than a hundred each one was more than ten metres tall and almost a hundred metres long.

Richard’s attention was quickly drawn to a black hill in the middle of the battlefield, but looking closer he realised that it was a huge bug even larger than the broodmother, its lower body almost a thousand metres long and supported by hundreds of joints. The upper body was collapsed, but were it standing it would have been kilometres high, with thousands of small sharp blades all over.

The creature was completely surrounded by demons that seemed to have died all in the same moment, many in the middle of their attacks. Tens of thousands had been trying to climb up its mountainous body to its head, and Richard could already imagine the blades mincing them every step of the way. From the state of the battlefield, the bug had likely used a soul attack to wipe out everything within dozens of kilometres, wiping all life out within its field. That one attack had exhausted all of its life, but despite their victory the demons had lost most of their number as well. The one survivor, the lord himself, had only managed to crawl a small distance away before he died as well.

He felt breathless just looking at the enormous body of the creature, like all human labels of saint, legend, and epic were a joke in front of this being. While he had known this for a long time now, the enormous body reconfirmed that size was the best way to fit power. Demons, titans, dragons... they all used size to contain their sheer strength.

Humans preferred maintaining their original size, but even so when someone focused on strength became legendary, their body would grow. The physically strongest human powerhouse to date, Emperor Philip, resembled a small hill. Although most human legends focused on the power of laws, that could still be overcome with enough brute force. Considering his own increasing power, he started wondering whether it would be wise to let his own body grow from its average build.

Putting the thought to the back of his head, he flew towards the large bug. However, the trace amount of mana he activated in this process seemed to be a spark that lit up the entire battlefield, breaking the balance that had lasted thousands of years. The demons all started collapsing before his eyes, turning into fine dust that was almost impossible to see with the naked eye. As he looked up, the enormous bug started dissolving as well, the dirt rolling down like a mudslide as the mountainous body disappeared.

It was only then that he understood just how much the origin force pool had kept up the demon lord’s body. All of these remaining combatants had been drained until they were empty shells, but the lord had still managed to set up the enormous energy gathering array that the other demon had taken advantage of and managed to keep himself intact.

Once the bug’s body disappeared, the earth shook and started sinking down. The rocks and soil fell in to form a hole that was a few kilometres wide, and flying over it Richard’s vision was blocked by thick fog a thousand metres deep. He saw vague specks of fire amongst the fog, but after some hesitation he flew down.

His senses dulled the moment he entered the fog, the feeling almost the exact same as when entering a portal. He went forward anyway, appearing on the other end a few moments later. As he exited the kilometres-wie portal, he was stunned by what he saw.

The sky here stretched infinitely in all directions, dark red flames occasionally raining down to the bottom. A thick smell of sulphur filled the atmosphere here, making one feel like their lungs were burning up whenever they inhaled. Richard’s body adapted to it immediately, but he also realised that even saints couldn’t last long here. The cracked black ground was overflowing with lava all around, some eruptions going more than a hundred metres high before falling back down.

This was a place he had never seen before, but also one that couldn’t be more familiar. For a moment, he felt like he was back in the Archeron family tombs, but something in the air felt hostile and left his blood surging. Hundreds of lesser demons were roaming around below, attacking each other constantly, but as one discovered and pounced towards him he just grabbed it by the head and burnt it to ashes with blue fire. The headless corpse then fell to the ground, limbs still twitching.

Indeed, this was the abyss.

Looking behind him, he saw a huge mirror-like surface in the air that was the exit back to Faelor. However, it was a full kilometre wide, large enough to fit a lord of the abyss and his million-strong army through.

Richard stood rooted in place for five minutes before he could accept the fact that he was in the abyss. In that time, a dozen demons had pounced him and were killed off. They were only level 6-7 back in the corridor, but here they were covered in a red glow that brought them to level 8 or 9. They eventually realised how strong he was, backing off and staying far away. However, he didn’t stay long himself; even though this portal seemed to have been abandoned for some time now, demons had sharp senses and could be attracted by his presence. He didn’t even care about greater demons, but he definitely wouldn’t want to fight a lesser lord within the abyss.