A Demon's Journey

Currently, Azaroth was standing in the presence of a beast that is typically found in Purgatory. The Abyssal Hound…

They were considered one of the superior demon beast races found in Purgatory. The ones above the Abyssal Hound were those with a Mythical Bloodline within Purgatory, so these Abyssal Hounds had quite some prestige there.

Although he was surprised, Azaroth didn't show it on his face. Such a reaction would only invite trouble.

He observed its body with his Mystic Eyes of Perception and found traces of Holy Aura within this Beast's body.

'This explains why that Astral Ardor Gathering Array was constructed here. This beast was using that array to counter the Holy Ardor and heal his body. From the rate of how he is healing, it's clear that it would take only 1 more month for this beast to heal.'

"As you told me, I have brought him here." The White Wolf spoke to the Abyssal Hound.

The Abyssal Hound lightly nodded and replied with a weak voice, "You can return now. Use your ability to heal our injured comrades. I need to talk to this thing."

"Are you going to be okay? This human isn't weak." The White Wolf spoke with a serious voice. He was somewhat worried about the Abyssal Hound.

"I still have that technique, and even if he kills me somehow, he should understand that he won't be able to escape this forest alive." The Abyssal Hound replied to the White Wolf.

Azaroth internally snorted upon hearing this conversation.

'What a stupid act. To think that even beasts would resort to such a roundabout tactic to threaten someone. The standards of the beasts have really fallen.'

The White Wolf appeared to be thinking for some time and soon turned its body. It walked out of the cave, leaving Azaroth and the Abyssal Hound alone in the cave.

"You wanted to meet me?" Azaroth asked, his voice remained entirely neutral.

"That is true. I am curious about you. You clearly gave a human aura earlier, but the energy you are using right now is demonic in nature." The Abyssal Hound spoke with a curious tone.

Instead of answering its question, Azaroth asked with a sneer, "And I wonder what a demon beast like you is doing here?"

"Answer my question!" The Abyssal Hound spoke while releasing its aura.

Azaroth snorted in response as he felt the suppression from a Beast Lord's aura, "Is it worth it to burn your vitality just to try and scare me? This is so pathetic that I almost pity you."

At those words, the Abyssal Hound's eyes widened in surprise. It never imagined that the human ahead of him would be able to see instantly through this act.

The pressure Azaroth was experiencing vanished soon enough. After all, since there was no point in trying to scare Azaroth, the Abyssal Hound didn't wish to injure its own vitality for no reason.

"What are you?" The Abyssal Hound asked while staring at Azaroth with a curious gaze. Now it was truly curious about Azaroth's identity.

Azaroth ignored that question and spoke, "I wonder, why hasn't that White Wolf killed you yet. Have you placed a suggestion in his mind that you are its kin? Or are you controlling his mind through your superior spiritual energy? I wonder what would happen if I were to remove that."

There was a slight grin on Azaroth's face as he spoke those words.

In fact, the Abyssal Hound seemed to appear quite fearful as he heard Azaroth. It was like Azaroth had just revealed a secret that he had been trying to hide.

Unlike how it appeared, the beasts of the continent immensely hated the demon beasts from Purgatory.

When Azaroth had been walking together with the White Wolf in the cave, with his Mystic Eyes of Perception, he had seen a faint demonic aura on the White Wolf's body.

It was so faint that even Azaroth hadn't sensed it until he observed this White Wolf closely with his Mystic Eyes of Perception.

"How did you know of that?"

"You are not the ones who should be asking the questions!" Azaroth spoke with an authoritative tone.

For some moments, the Abyssal Hound remained silent. Azaroth smirked and continued, "You can't just be a demon beast. I have never heard of a Demon Beast studying Arrays in Purgatory. So speak, who are you?"

Now, Azaroth's voice was relatively calmer than before.

The Abyssal Hound spoke with a neutral tone, "How do you know that the Demon Beast don't study Arrays in Purgatory? Have you been there? Or are you a demon?"

Once again, Azaroth didn't answer his question and spoke with a sneer, "Wouldn't you like to know?"

Before the Abyssal Hound said something, Azaroth spoke with a demanding tone, "Speak what I want to know because if I want to leave this place, a being like you can't stop it. It will take a single touch from me to remove your spiritual interference with that White Wolf. I want to see how long you can live then."

"Now tell me how and why did you come to this place! I want the truth, or you might not live to see tomorrow's sun." Azaroth threatened with an angry voice as if this Abyssal Hound was getting on his nerves.

"Very well…"

"It was 6 months ago that I arrived in this world. My name is Talvin, and originally, I was a Demon Lord showing my talent in Arrays. One day, I was visited by a Demon King who required my assistance to form an array on this continent. He opened the portal to this forest using a forbidden technique. I arrived here with a dozen of Abyssal Hounds who were supposed to protect me. My only task was to create a part of the array and then form a teleportation array to return to Purgatory." The Abyssal Hound spoke with a gruff voice.

Azaroth thought in his head 'This guy's talent must be quite good if a Demon King specifically asked him to form an array here. The Demon King even used a forbidden technique to send him to this forest. Was it because he knew that no one in this area could resist the combined might of a Demon Lord and Abyssal Hounds?'

"However, that stupid Demon King didn't know that there were a bunch of Angels who were around this area. Because the Demon King's forbidden technique to send me to this continent had flared up quite a bit of Demonic Aura, it didn't take long for the Angels to come and kill me." The Abyssal Hound sounded incredibly angry as it spoke this fact.

"What happened next?" Azaroth asked as he was curious to know more.

The Abyssal Hound replied with an angry voice, "What do you think happened? The Abyssal Hounds and I were absolutely slaughtered by those fucking Angels!"

Azaroth coldly asked, "And? That still doesn't explain how you are in this body. Shouldn't you be in your original body right now?"

The Abyssal Hound growled and spoke, "My body was going to be destroyed soon because I was struck by that Holy Ardor. I used a technique to burn my vitality and faked my death. Once they saw how I was impaled by those couple of Holy Spears and knew that I had more or less died and how my body was going to be destroyed soon, they left the area."

"Once I knew that the Angels had left, I immediately stopped using that technique and looked around. I saw an Abyssal Hound near me that was also about to die. However, it was in a better condition than me, and I immediately decided to take over its body."

"I constructed an Array using the rest of my energy and switched bodies with the Abyssal Hound. However, the Abyssal Hound was also struck by quite a bit of Holy Ardor."

"I couldn't switch bodies with these beasts as there would be quite a problem with compatibility, and I wasn't sure if their bodies would reject my spirit or not. If it did, then I wouldn't return back to this body and could essentially be considered dead at that point. As for those beasts whose body I could forcefully take over, they were too weak, and it would be idiotic to take over such a weak beast."

"Almost all my Demonic Ardor of my body was used to keep the Holy Ardor at bay, and I couldn't recover at all. At that time, I thought of using Heavenly Energy from the herbs to annihilate the Holy Ardor within my body. However, as you can see, the process is frustratingly slow as even after 6 months, I still haven't recovered."

The Abyssal Hound was seemingly done with his explanation, and Azaroth began to think deeply about those words.

He knew that constructing an array with their own energy was quite possible for a Demon Lord or a Beast Lord or a 5 Star Warrior as long as they reached the Arrays' grandmaster level.

"I see… Quite an adventure you had." Azaroth sarcastically spoke as he stared at that injured Abyssal Hound.

"Yeah, yeah. Make fun of me…" The Abyssal Hound replied, but suddenly, there was a small smile on his face, "Finally, it's done."

"Huh? What do you mean?" Azaroth asked with a confused expression.

Instead of answering Azaroth's question, the Abyssal Hound muttered, "Hellish Chain Soul Suppressing Formation."

Instantly, tens of chains were released from the ground as they grabbed Azaroth's body.

"What is the meaning behind this?!" Azaroth spoke while angrily staring at the Abyssal Hound.

"You are so stupid that you never noticed I was constructing a formation right underneath you. Because I was acting frightened, did you actually think you had the upper hand? How naïve!" The Abyssal Hound replied with a chuckle.

"The Demonic Energy and the flames you possess, I believe that should destroy this Holy Ardor within my body. Moreover, I will now make you the same as that White Wolf and turn you into my spiritual slave! Haha…" The Abyssal Hound looked quite happy as he spoke that.

Azaroth tried to move his hand, but the Hell Chains around him just got stronger as they sucked his Demonic Energy. Soon enough, his black hair returned back to its original blue color. The color of his eyes changed from purple to red as well.

"Hahaha… This is a formation I invented in recent months while I was trapped here and recovering. It's effective against Beast Ardor and Demonic Ardor."

Azaroth gritted his teeth in anger as he hatefully stared at the beast.

"Weren't you very arrogant right now? Where did all that tyrannical aura of yours go?!" The Abyssal Hound looked really pleased as he saw the struggling Azaroth.

However, internally, the Abyssal Hound was thinking 'This is strange. His energy seems to be quite a lot denser and greater in quantity than I originally thought… If this goes on, my formation might reach its limits and break. That would be quite dangerous.'

"Alright, I can recover my energy later. Time to get you under my control." The Abyssal Hound spoke confidently.

"Spiritual Slave Seal!"

Once this technique was used, the Abyssal Hound felt his consciousness move away from his mind.

It wasn't the first time the Abyssal Hound was doing this, so he was quite confident.

But as his Spirit reached closer to Azaroth, he heard Azaroth's whisper, "Finally…"

It was at that time the Abyssal Hound felt something strange. However, by the time he realized that something was wrong, it was all too late.

He was sucked into Azaroth's body and soon found himself in an unfamiliar place.

Darkness… That was the best way to reply to Azaroth's inner world.

"T-This… What is this place? Where am I?" No matter how far Talvin's spirit saw, it just saw never-ending darkness.

Suddenly, a deep voice resounded in that darkness, "You are quite slow at making a formation. I was already getting tired of acting, and it was frankly getting difficult to continue our conversation without raising your suspicion. I needed you to finish the formation before we finish our talk so that you could use this technique."

This was indeed the truth, as Azaroth knew he couldn't initiate an attack on Talvin's spirit. If he did try to attack Talvin's Spirit, Talvin just needed to use his superior density Ardor and attack Azaroth's body.

That would be more than enough damage to Azaroth. So, he knew that he couldn't initiate this Spiritual Attack.

He had noticed how Talvin had suddenly begun to form a formation underneath his feet because of the Mystic Eyes of Perception. Although Azaroth didn't know precisely what formation it was, he could more or less guess that it was for restraining him.

He continued to talk and act gullibly while Talvin thought that he was the one who had the upper hand.

"Did you think I don't know that you planted a hypnotic suggestion in that White Wolf's Head? Once I figured that you were going to use a restraining formation against me, I knew you were planning to use that hypnotic suggestion on me as well. This was precisely what occurred."

"W-What are you?! How can your inner consciousness be so large?!" Talvin's spirit asked with a frightened voice.

"Right, I never did introduce myself, did I? Greetings, I am Demon God Azaroth…" The words were in a calm voice.

However, Tavil's spirit felt as if those words fell on him like Heavenly Thunder! No, in fact, even Heavenly Thunder won't hurt him as much as those words did.

"D-Demon G-God… D-Demon God Azaroth?! Impossible! H-How can you be in the body of a human?!"

Azaroth replied with the same calm voice as before, "The same reason why you are in the body of Abyssal Hound. Because I had little choice in that matter."

"Anyway, that's going to be the end of the questions." Azaroth calmly said to Talvin's Spirit.

Before Tavil's Spirit could speak anything, Azaroth first used the "Soul Reading Technique."

Instantly, a lot of information appeared in Azaroth's head. He decided to look at it later. There was something more important he had to deal with…

Currently, Talvin's spirit had more or less shattered since Azaroth had forcefully used the Soul Reading Technique.

As Azaroth gathered all the split particles of Talvin's spirit, he also implanted a suggestion deep in its Spirit, "You are my slave."

The suggestion he implanted was meant to allow Talvin to still have rational thoughts, but once Azaroth ordered him, he would be forced to obey it.

"Just to be sure, though, I should add something else. Bone-Chilling Yin Parasite!"

Instantly, a small part of the darkness from Azaroth's mental scape combined with Talvin's Spirit.

"Now… a part of my consciousness shall be present in your soul. This shall remain dormant nearly all the time unless you have some wicked thoughts about me, then this consciousness will activate and destroy your soul." Azaroth lightly spoke those words, and with this, he was finished.. Now, he could finally read those memories.