My Journey to Godhood as a Caterpillar

The demonic arm started to fizzle and pop as Yun Jhin refined it using his ki, the old man's soul was slowly getting refined and absorbed by Yun Jhin's and his first jewel was getting clearer and shinier, slowly but surely he reached the middle stages of the 1st jewel, he now sat around the 5th stage.

Memories started to flicker around Yun Jhin's face as he looked through the old man's life for useful information:

"Born as a noble, trained as a general, lived a long life but one mistake made me lose my cultivation base and position in the Empire."

"Countless nations fell to their knees as I attacked them with the 1st legion, increasing the Empire's land to the current one, reaching the peak of the Emperor realm, breaking through the Sage Realm..."

"One loss against a 14-year-old girl with three swords, left alone to die on the battlefield by my subordinates. A demonic raven approached me to eat my almost dead carcass, but what I could see in its eyes was the soul of an injured demon."

"The being tried to take my body but I resisted with all my will power and sealed him inside my left arm."

"I went back to the Empire, only for the emperor to call me a criminal who betrayed the Empire and its people, cultivation crippled and banished to the middle regions, I lived a life of a cripple of three years before the demon started to act up and heal my broken meridians..."

"Slowly but surely my body accepted the demonic ki that the thing was feeding me, transforming my quintessence into something half-dragon, half-demon."

"In the end, I started to rely on him..."

Images popped up one after another, since the man's youth to the man's death, Yun Jhin frowned as his quintessence flesh and blood would have helped kickstart his evolution to an artificial caterpillar, atleast he would have a rather pure draconic essence to work with.

Most of the memories of the old man consisted of battles and wars, he was once called the grand general as he didn't lose one battle until he met that 14-year-old girl, her image was blurred in his memories, maybe it was his way to cope with the fact he got almost killed by a teen girl, but that girl defeated a Sage Realm expert at the 3rd stage, even though the fight was rather close, the age difference was enormous.

Yun Jhin frowned as he recalled that woman, it had been 200 years since that battle happened, she must have grown by an extreme amount by now, her innate talent would be on the level of top-ranked executives even in his former sect.

The memories didn't tell him much as some of them were suppressed or missing, the man's mental power was in disarray when he died, it might have been due to the similar way of his death and near-death situation, both by swordsman women.

Yun Jhin made a mental note of the woman and decided he would ask around later, he needed to know who he had to avoid and who he could confront.

After he fully finished devouring the old man's soul he moved onto the demons, the demon's soul was shivering inside the husk of an arm as it pleaded to Yun Jhin:

"Please don't refine me, I will take you as my master!"

"I will do whatever you want, please don't kill me!"

Demons embraced life and hated death, they liked to provoke pain and suffering on others but abhorred the same happening to them, they were the ultimate hypocrites, the same could be said about devils, but unlike the demons, they hid their tendencies on a front of posh etiquette and contracts.

Yun Jhin knew the demon was faking this act, if he let him go or tried to enslave him, he would immediately go and try to devour his soul, he wouldn't be able to, but Yun Jhin didn't want to waste time with him.

The demon's soul started screeching in pain as it distorted, it was originally of green color, but now it turned a deep red one, its eyes were full of malice as it cursed at Yun Jhin:

"I curse you to die a death worse than mine by one million times! I curse you, you damn piece of trash, we will meet again in hell!"

Yun Jhin face couldn't be more passive as he said:

"No, we won't."

The demon's soul quintessence and memory broke up into energy that Yun Jhin devoured using his innate jewel skill, multiple different memories started to swim in his mind, the egg chamber, the sweet embrace of the demonic egg...

Escaping from the egg before dying of suffocation, devouring your siblings to survive... death, decay, a burning wasteland, cliffs...

The early memories of a demon were all the same, in the context that most of them were born weak and through devouring, they became stronger and improved their talent, in the end, the demon ended up breaking through the King Realm and gained a name, a cultivation technique, and met with the devils, the devils abhorred him and threw him to the demon's city.

The city wasn't something the demon was accustomed to so he left hell after tens of years of slaving into the city for the information of the location of Hell's gate.

He went out of hell and the location in the mortal plane was... Yun Jhin's eyes widened as he didn't recognize the place where Hell's entrance was, but after he replayed the memory more times he finally started to get an inkling of where it was supposed to be.

It seemed the blood throne sect perished without him!

Hell's entrance was in the former headquarters of his sect, however, they were deserted and looked like hell itself descended on them, he could only recognize that it was his former sect's headquarters after he inspected all of the small details, such as the building placements, ruins, runes, and the destroyed formations.

Yun Jhin didn't care much about the sect as it was only a means to an end, from what he saw, it seemed hell decided to ride his sect after they heard he died, well it wasn't the wrong thing to do from their perspective, after all, he cheated them of quite a few contracts, the devil arch lords were fuming and he also ate some demon lords... He would be more surprised if nothing happened to the blood throne sect while he was gone.

The demonic arm in his grasp finally turned into ashes as nothing sustained it anymore, Yun Jhin opened his eyes as he dug out of the earth and looked around, there was no one around so he filled the ground again and left, he didn't leave any ki behind so no one would know what he did here.

Yun Jhin started to wander around the forest but didn't go very far into it, he would from time to time, harvest some herbs or kill some mutated demonic beats and keep their hearts or their other useful organs, from his inner clock he could say that almost 24 days passed since they entered the forest, unfortunately, he couldn't go and kill some of the geniuses as he wanted to, it seemed they were all gathered up by Lulu and she was protecting them.

He could see that because there weren't many demonic beasts anymore and only the useful herbs that they couldn't identify remained, Yun Jhin didn't mind much that he couldn't eat them, he found it to be more of an annoyance, after all, they were mostly half-lings in this batch, there were very few pure dragons left and Yun Jhin needed to eat them. However, this Empire was one of the relatively weak Empires in the upper continents.

From the old man's memories, he got to know that there were other 2 Empire's divided by a sea and a gigantic jungle, both of them had peak god realm experts, even though they only had 1 each, A peak god realm expert could kill any other God Realm expert below the 9th stage no matter what.

The Empire he was currently in was the brother of the Empire from over the ocean, and also a vassal of it, the Emperor was the son of the peak God Realm expert, and the name of the main Empire was the Luo Empire, the jungle one was called the Bumi Empire and both were named after their peak god realm experts.

Yun Jhin could count himself lucky that he ended up in the weaker empire as he could still eat pure dragon's if he was crafty enough, but if he ended versus a peak god realm expert, he could kiss goodbye his only remaining chance of breaking through the shackles of the universe and reaching true eternal life!

Yun Jhin frowned as he felt someone approach him and he turned his head back to look who was coming from behind him, it unsurprisingly was Lulu.

Lulu walked a little bit closer to him as she said:

"I have been looking all over for you, it's almost time to leave, there are 6 days left and the others were wondering where you went, also thank you for the healing back there."

The girl flicked her hair behind her as she put her hand on Yun Jhin's shoulder and her eyes hardened:

"Might I know what have you done with that demonic arm?"

Yun Jhin nonchalantly responded to her as if it wasn't a big deal:

"Would you believe I refined it?"

Lulu frowned as she didn't know about Yun Jhin's reincarnated status, so looking at his cultivation base she thought that he was lying, after all, to refine a demonic entity would require strong willpower and a cultivation base of atleast 5th stage of the King Realm, at the 5th stage you would get a jewel that would immensely increase your soul and mental capabilities, that's why one would need to refine demonic entities at this stage, or else there was a chance they would be entranced by the sweet promises of the demon and led to the demonic path.

Most organizations hated hell and anyone who dealt with them, so it was normal Lulu looked a little bit concerned after she heard that Yun Jhin refined a demonic arm by himself.

Yun Jhin looked at her and then said:

"If you are concerned something's wrong with me, you can come to the Emperor with me and make him inspect me, I won't oppose that."

Lulu stopped frowning as she heard his words then took a few steps back, she looked a bit startled by something but Yun Jhin couldn't really see what it was, did she fall for him already?

But that wasn't it, atleast yet, Lulu grasped her spatial ring as she took out a communication stone and looked in it, her eyes widened as she said:

"Our colleagues got attacked by a... it doesn't say what they got attacked by, it seems the communication stone got interfered with at the last message, we need to rush back to help them!"

Yun Jhin looked at Lulu then stopped her by grasping her shoulder, Lulu looked puzzled at him and Yun Jhin opened his mouth and said:

"This is a survival exercise meant to toughen up all of them, you should realize that accidents are bound to happen, you can't save everyone nor you have to, what will you do if the demonic entity that attacked them is stronger than you are? Would you lie your life down for people that you barely know?"

Lulu shook her arm from his grasp as she glared at him and said:

"As one of the princesses of the Empire, I must take arms like every other talented cultivator and protect my people, regardless if they are weak or strong and regardless of the opponent even if he or she is beyond my abilities, I would rather die on the battlefield than let some of my people die when I could do something, I thought you are a pretty different guy than the others, but all I see in you is a coward!"

Yun Jhin chuckled as he responded to her:

"Call me a coward would you? Ok, I will go with you, there was nothing I had to do anyways since you love your people so much I will help you save them."

Lulu calmed a little after she heard his response but her face was still icy, but then she remembered that Yun Jhin was an outsider as he came to the Empire with the help of general Kong Luo, of course, he wouldn't be attached to the Empire or its people!

He must have lived a hard life, Lulu's eyes softened as she looked at Yun Jhin follow her from behind, she used her fastest speed and he could somehow keep up with her, she was interested in what other kinds of tricks he had up his sleeve besides his elemental attacks.

After moving through the forest for tens of minutes they finally reached the camp where most of the 'genius' cultivators waited for Lulu, the camp was in shambles as bloodstains were scattered here and there, there were even some limbs scattered around, but there were no heads or internal organs, from what Yun Jhin could see, some of them must have been crippled to make an example.

It seemed that what attacked the camp wasn't any normal demonic beast.

Lulu looked around and came with the same conjecture as Yun Jhin and her face paled, however, her pride didn't let her go out of the forest and ask for the people outside for help as she would technically be disqualified, she didn't want to throw out the chance of shining in her mother's eyes for the lives of others, even though she talked about saving the others she was also selfish in her kind of way, she would rather throw away her life than disappoint her mother.

Yun Jhin looked at the conflicted expression on her face and patted her shoulder then said:

"Let's go, they left a lot of marks behind, we can easily track them, and yes I know it might be a trap, but didn't you say half an hour ago that you needed to save them regardless of the opponent or situation?"

Lulu nodded at him and wanted to go ahead but Yun Jhin stopped her and said:

"Let me go ahead, stay behind me, I have a special stealth technique that will make the both of us invisible so we won't fall into the enemies trap, Ok?"

Both of them disappeared as Lulu stood near him, both of their bodies almost brushed by each other and Lulu found this to be an unknown experience to her, after all, she talked to men before but never touched one this intimately.

Lulu took her mind of these things as she had to help the captured 'geniuses'.

Yun Jhin slowly followed the blood marks left on the ground as he reached an indigenous camp after a few hours of tracking.

There he found the captured 'geniuses' along with some natives of the forest, and the natives were currently boiling the 'geniuses' into a gigantic black cauldron while patting their bellies and waiting for the feast.

Yun Jhin found the image to be quite funny. Lulu didn't and she almost ran out of Yun Jhin's stealth zone to attack directly, her youthful hot-headedness took a hold of her but Yun Jhin stopped her in the nick of time and said:

"We need a plan to get in there, atleast a diversion would be needed, we can't go there and hope to kill everyone easily, there is a high chance they might just kill the others or threaten us with their lives."

Lulu nodded as she was ashamed of her act, then waited for Yun Jhin to give her the plan.

Yun Jhin thought for a few moments before he opened his mouth to tell her the plan he concocted.