Stray

Now Nemo remembered everything.

For example, hundreds of millions of years ago.

At that time, he picked a relatively soft sun and curled up in the most suitable position. First, selectively absorb the land that was free in the void, and then prepare the water source to provide a solid foundation for the birth of life.

…At first, he was simply a caretaker.

In fact, life wasn’t only cultivated by the Pillar of the World. In some barren corners of the void, as long as the condition were right, there would also be life. After experiencing cruel and disorderly elimination, trying countless absurd possibilities, the final survivors retained relative stability and gradually evolved— Stumbling and groping forward in the darkness.

But nothing was eternal, and those lives that lacked restraint would eventually destroy themselves or die from the apoptotic sun.

The Pillar of the World also didn’t create life out of thin air. All it could do was guide, support, and transform, providing a place for the newborn races to live, create a suitable environment and the necessary energy for the confused and ignorant newborn races.

The world on the Pillar of the World was extremely gentle. It wasn’t desolate and difficult to survive in as the other ownerless places.

The rudiments of civilization began to emerge, and the intelligent lift kept expanding and developing. As knowledge and intelligence continued to accumulate, it quickly reached its peak and then the growth rate immediately slowed down. At that time, Nemo didn’t feel impatient. After all, the surface was developed based on magic circuits that he had provided. It made sense that the foundation was homogenous and lacking in change.

He waited patiently for other visitors.

He didn’t have to wait long. A floating cocoon floated in the void and was attracted by the booming life and landed in his world. They quickly reached a deal, just as their respective ancestors had done for billions of years.

[Finding that he couldn’t beat the master, the weak bard had an idea. He proposed a deal to the host— “I’ll provide you with what you want, in exchange, you can give me some food. The ones that are farthest from the table, just the ones that you like the least”. How smart, right?]

Jesse Dylan had hinted this to him a long time ago.

Nemo set aside a portion of the race that provided him a source of energy for this hungry floating cocoon, and in return the other side would introduce a new power system that was fresh, but also had a small risk of fatalities…

The intelligent race from which the floating cocoon would continue to develop, and they would live based on the external power system of it. Completely different theories of knowledge would be born one after another, and then they would bear fruit.

Those unknown fruits did have the possibility of harming themselves.

And this was exactly what Nemo needed. Strange spell structure, strange knowledge, strange stimulations. Controllable damage that came entirely from the outside world was necessary, as it could accelerate his evolution more than anything else.

Sure enough, the race under the jurisdiction of the floating cocoon flourished quickly, and then began to explore the Abyss.

Nemo would originally place the bone jade directly at the bottom of the Abyss, to reward these brave surface civilizations for pushing their limits, but he quickly discovered that their development route was more destructive than he had imagined…

The expedition team on the surface was no longer satisfied by the small number of resources and more advance weapons were always needed. They began to try to use corrosive surface magic to excavate the bottom of the Abyss without restraint, looking for more bone jade.

They tickled Nemo a little and were quickly alerted as a result. If this was allowed to continue, perhaps one day he would really be eroded by a mutant surface spell and be seriously injured.

Thus, he changed his plan and stopped giving it out.

He took out a piece of flesh and gathered all the biological intelligence he had acquire and made this creation the strongest “life” in the world, then attached his consciousness to it.

He began to give the bone jade at a clear price— To obtain the precious resource, they must first come with the strongest knowledge that could surpass the previous era.

And what could represent the top knowledge of a civilization would always be weapons and war.

Sure enough, after changing his plan, the life on the surface no longer destroyed indiscriminately, and instead attacked the “guardian”. The commanding races on the surface began to call the strange “life” the Demon King and regarded bone jade as a reward for defeating it and stopped asking for it indiscriminately under deterrence.

The flesh separated from the body was destroyed, filtered, and recovered by the body, and the new information could be safely obtained.

Those surface powerhouses who died underground would also be dealt with together, providing him with countless knowledge, language, and combat experience derived from the surface.

[Why is there always… only such an abnormal life at the bottom of the abyss? Since it’s claimed that the Demon King will not come to the surface, why’s there an expedition?]

The surface was also aware of this.

Nemo had thought that things could stabilize here.

Although the pain of being killed again and again would make him slightly unhappy, whenever the flesh was withdrawn and the emotions were removed, he would become calm again.

Until thousands of years ago.

He obtained a somewhat unpleasant intelligence from the corpses of the expeditionary fighters. An organization claiming to be the Gatekeepers was trying to “create a God”, and there wasn’t much problem with their theoretical direction.

This made him extremely vigilant.

Everything had a price. While the intelligent races enjoyed a comfortable environment, both Nemo and the floating cocoon that now called itself “Jesse Dylan” would instinctively suppress it, creating an upper limit to the abilities of all creatures.

[This wasn’t such a big deal. To make an inappropriate analogy— when people raise fuller goats, they must first domesticate them to remove the possibility of them hurting others. All possible injuries must be within a controllable range, which isn’t difficult to understand, right?]

Jesse himself knew this very well.

The delineation of boundaries was very simple— If a creature surpassed that boundary, it would have the same qualifications as them to gain power from other lives.

Not to mention the not-so-strong floating cocoon, even compared to themselves, that creature would have an unparalleled local advantage. In contrast, it was the true kinship of all life after all. If in any masterless world, if such a strong thing was naturally produced, it would very likely become the master of that world.

But not here.

If that creature plundered all the dominion of other lives in his hands, he would quickly weaken. Fortunately, he still had time to spread out his body, rush to the sun, and burn out the existing world. If he was unlucky and the creature happened to find the right way and decide to take the initiative to attack…

There was a high possibility that he would be killed, just as humans die to unknown maladies.

If the existing civilization still had high value, Nemo could consider watching for a while. Unfortunately, both the Abyss or the surface that was willingly destroying each other had once again reached the bottleneck of development and weren’t moving forward.

It was time to change the coping method again, was what Nemo decided so.

Then he set a plan into motion.

And now, as he had speculated about a certain possibility, under the influence of useless feelings, he was resisting his original will.

Half of his body was shredded by the shadow blade, and in the process of regenerating his bones, Nemo struggled to avoid another attack by Ulysses. The blood couldn’t stop gushing but at the moment, he wouldn’t simply die because of blood loss.

The pain of bone growth was unimaginable and in order to always assess the degree of damage to his body, Nemo didn’t dare to abandon the pain. He gasped. His incomplete robe was completely soaked in blood and flesh, but he before he could adjust his balance, another wave of attacks hit his head accurately.

Ulysses was like a sophisticated puppet. There was no hesitation, no fatigue; only endless deadly attacks.

He must be equally calm and attentive.

Nemo took a half step back, sharply side-stepped, and quickly protected his head with a shadow shield. A sharp limb with corrosive spells slashed diagonally across the shadow shield. After a teeth clenching sound, it directly pierced Nemo’s shoulder on the other side.

Blood splattered everywhere.

Nemo didn’t waste time screaming or drew his breath. He had already stopped breathing and quickly retreated without saying a word as he blasted a series of delayed explosion array, waiting for Ulysses to follow.

There was no time to falter, no time to despair.

During the retreat, Nemo stepped on something, and the sound of metal rubbing against the sand sounded under his feet. Then there was a familiar aura…

His counterfeit staff was long mutilated from the battle, but Nemo still picked it up, clenched it in his hand, and stared straight in the direction of Ulysses in the darkness.

But a few seconds later…

An explosion was suddenly triggered shaking the space and several heavy alien limbs broke to the ground. Then there was a sticky sound of flesh, as they grew out from the fracture becoming intact again. With his senses fully open, Nemo coldly “watched” the newborn limbs shrink, skillfully avoiding the next few floating arrays without even a half-surprise look on his face.

It seemed that this trick couldn’t be used too often.

Ulysses’ attack wasn’t disordered. While fighting, it was still analyzing intelligence related to the battle. From moves, spells, to attack habits, that body without self was growing rapidly.

Just as he had planned.

Before the arrival of the last expeditionary force, when he was the real “Ulysses”, Nemo marked the teleportation array in the depths with a deadly spell that was activated regularly. As long as the visitor’s behavior wasn’t too much, the second “Ulysses” he created would subconsciously avoid those two places, reducing the risk of exposure.

In the meantime, it could also make a stumbling block for the next expedition.

Under his command, Flint helped him remove the head responsible for intelligence collecting, temporarily suppressing his self-awareness. He got a perfect body— Close to humans and knew nothing about the world.

With an instinctive desire for information, it was only a matter of time before this body left the Abyss. Even if the luck was extremely bad, a hundred years was enough.

As for the recovery plan, he also planned it perfectly…

Nemo waved his regrown left hand, and countless sharp shadow thorns pierced Ulysses, causing the latter let out a low roar. Black thunder dots with a scarlet halo instantly filled the entire space— Except for the top part, the end of the thunder and lightning touched a certain height in the darkness and disappeared silently.

Sure enough.

The moment Ulysses discovered him, the Abyss was completely closed, cutting off all possibility of reinforcements joining. Just like every previous expedition.

A perfect execution ground.

Although the magic power was comparable, Ulysses’ body was tougher than that of humans and was more suitable for fighting. Not only that, its skills were also gradually becoming stronger, while he would become exhausted, shaken by useless feelings, and eventually lose hope in the endless battle.

He had considered the battle with a zero chance of winning.

A cold shadow blade grazed his neck almost cutting Nemo’s head off. Blood spurted and the side effects of blood loss made his knees soft.

Resist as planned, fail as planned.

Spitting out the blood-mixed with mud and sand in his mouth, Nemo supported his hands on the ground and barely stood up.

What is Oliver doing now? Nemo thought somewhat distracted as a squirming black shadow stuck to the sound while he was awkwardly avoiding a series of bombardments of magic arrays.

Speaking of which, it had only been about half a day, and the load on the cracking a space tunnel was extremely heavy. Oliver’s physical strength may not be able to recover at the moment.

Jesse Dylan would tell him the truth.

Even if he didn’t mention it, Dylan would most likely guess his thoughts— The consciousness of the Pillar of the World ascended to the surface, but it wasn’t out of pure curiosity.

If everything was normal, he himself would’ve slightly shrunk his body and changed his position. The surface’s crust would tear apart, ushering a great natural disaster for the surface and the Abyss, but a few hardy beings would survive this catastrophe, reconstruct civilization from scratch, and create new and intelligent beings.

If the Gatekeeper’s experiment was unfortunately successful and a mutant really appeared and was able to retain its mind, Nemo would spread his wings and fly to the sun without a care in the world, completely destroying the entire world and killing the deadly danger while it was still in its cradle.

No matter which one he chooses in the end, today’s surface civilization was destined to be destroyed.

[You know very well.] The annoying voice in my heart resurrected. [You know very well that the disappearance of “Nemo Light” was only a matter of time, and the closure here won’t open until the battle is over.]

Nemo supported the staff with both hands, and the black shadow condensed into an ice cone and pierced Ulysses directly into its chest. And he was also stabbed by several shadow thorns, and one leg was nailed down.

[The battle has lasted for a few hours, and your odds of winning haven’t changed. After the return of consciousness, you will be the first of the surface to be destroyed and “Nemo Light” will disappear.]

Nemo didn’t hesitate to cut off the leg with a dark shadow and the familiar pain of flesh regrowing began to tear at his nerves again. He shook for a while, then stabilized his body, without any intention of flinching.

[Even if your feelings can keep you going endlessly, you don’t have time to find a way to contact the surface. Oliver Ramon will officially take action against you for the survival of the surface and your agreement. “Nemo Light” will disappear.]

The blood flowing out was used by him to draw an array. Nemo desperately squeezed the new knowledge learned in his short adventure, mixed with existing experience, and tried to use abyssal magic to reproduce the erosion array from the Church of Silence.

One by one, bloody fishing nets entangled the huge monsters on the opposite side, and the hissing sound of flesh corrosion was particularly piercing.

[Even if a miracle happens, Oliver Ramon is unwilling to give up the monster under his feet, and he can’t come. It takes great strength to break this closure. If he doesn’t plunder from you, he won’t be able to grow to that point before his life span is exhausted. In this case, “Oliver Ramon” will disappear.]

Nemo took the opportunity to approach, but only succeeded in cutting off Ulysses’ three wrists, and missed his opponent’s head. His body was still too small to be suitable for such a battle.

Ulysses didn’t seem to feel pain. It closed its limbs like a spider, instantly protecting its head, and hundreds of impact arrays suddenly appeared in all directions.

The distance was too close, and Nemo received a solid blow behind his back. If he was still a normal human, this blow would be enough to kill him on the spot— Ulysses had almost cut him into two sections.

Nemo was thrown into the ground fiercely, smashing into several huge rocks, and finally crashed into the huge pit again. Stone debris and grains of sand were like raindrops of a torrential rain as they fell continuously.

He stood up again, with a bloody, incomplete and terrifying body.

[The so-called feelings cannot change this.]

‘How weird,’ Nemo thought to himself in the midst of endless pain. At this moment, he only felt relief-like peace in his heart.

Before that, he had never thought about how he loved Oliver Ramon. He had read enough shocking love stories that in comparison to that, they were just an ordinary couple who didn’t quarrel very often.

Unlike lovers who had been together for decades, they hadn’t been together for that long.

Unlike lovers who live and die for each other and danced on the verge of death, they spent most of their time in search of peace.

Unlike lovers who were glued together in the beginning, as if they have found their missing half, they had too many differences, but they were just moving forward one step at a time, trying to hold each other’s hands tightly.

It stood to reason that such trivial and ordinary feelings should have been washed away by the onset of those huge memory a long time ago.

Incredible.

Nemo stood up again, and the dark shadow wrapped around his waist, allowing him to barely move as he recovered. Ulysses’ spell exploded in his ear, and blood kept dripping down his cheeks. The side of his head was burning with pain, but he couldn’t help showing a smile.

“That’s not true,” he opened his mouth and spoke in the darkness. “This kind of speculation lacks a very important condition— I believe in that person.”

“It’s not that I believe he won’t hurt me, it’s not that he will appear here in the next second. I believe he will struggle like me, trying to find that seemingly non-existent path. In this way, the current possibility isn’t complete.”

Yes, he just hadn’t come up with a solution to the current situation yet, but the matter of “survival” couldn’t continue under the premise that the “answer” must exist.

Suddenly a thought appeared like a flash of lightning.

Nemo’s smile suddenly became bigger. He clenched the twisted and broken staff in his hand and chuckled softly.

“Ulysses,” he called to his opponent who was desperately injecting murderous energy into the air, even if he knew that his opponent couldn’t understand.

“I have been killed countless times. Countless of time I’ve eliminated the faint pains and discomfort. I have also reunited with my body countless times, but there’s one problem. One small problem—”

The wound healed again, and the momentum around Nemo’s body suddenly ignited, spreading at a speed comparable to a quiet explosion.

“Since all feelings will be eliminated, why do I always remember to feed Aurorae?”

The answer may be simpler than he thought.

The Pillar of the World was constantly evolving and eliminating all factors that were detrimental to itself. He had never had family, companions, or friends. It was natural to be exposed to negative feelings that disturbed himself. This was conducive to evolution, as instinctive as a heartbeat.

…Then this is good.

This is enough.

The ground at the bottom of the Abyss was crumbling inch by inch, and even the closed shadows above began to tremble violently. Boosted by his superior magic, Nemo shot himself at Ulysses. He abandoned defense, abandoned evasion, and let those sharp limbs and spells cut off muscles and bones.

The world in front of him was twisting and collapsing. His discovery began to collapse, and the pain melted his bones and his blood became cold, but the momentum and fighting spirit that broke out became more unreal, as if Nemo’s speed was getting faster in the process of losing his mind during his advance.

It’s fine as long as his head was still intact, as long as the basic body was still there.

Countless layers of defensive arrays were shattered, and countless layers of offensive arrays tore away his flesh, blood, and limbs. What he lost was replaced with black shadows, even if it seemed to be an extremely inefficient and stupid frontal assault…

Ulysses turned its head, finally concentrated all its energy, and laid the strongest defense in several directions that it had speculated. In an instant, Nemo didn’t change direction. He rushed directly between the huge head and clumsily rammed himself into it.

Cursed blood splashed into Ulysses’ eyes, and the monster paused for less than a second.

In this moment of stagnation, countless arrays wrapped around the shapeless staff. Nemo raised it high and pierced the head under him fiercely…

“This proves that ‘I am better than you’,” he said hoarsely while remaining calm as the arrays quickly chewed up the brain inside its head, followed by the entirety of the remaining body.

“This proves that ‘emotions is beneficial to evolution’.”

“This proves that I am the stronger one.”

Nemo stood between the disintegrated limbs. The closure at the bottom of the Abyss was dissipating, and Ulysses’ corpse was turning into a dark and viscous liquid, seeping into the ground.

“It doesn’t matter if I can’t leave here. It doesn’t matter if there is no answer. After returning to the body, it doesn’t matter if this feeling will be the cause of my death.”

Nemo sat on Ulysses’ only remaining head and looked into the dark sky. After the battle, the lantern blind bugs began to travel slowly again, and those huge eyes looked like tiny stars in the distance.

Tying his hair behind his head again, Nemo closed his eyes and pressed his hand on the lower part of his head. Using the remnants of Ulysses’ magic power, he tentatively penetrated part of his consciousness into the body.

There was no sign of resistance.

Very good.

The Demon King would evolve “every generation”, and every time would gather knowledge, intelligence, and combat skills. The intelligence this time was a bit special. It was what the surface calls “emotions”.

Now it was time for him to wait for Oliver Ramon. It’s good to wait, but it’s okay not to wait. Whether he was coming to kill or love, it was just another possibility.

“I believe in you,” he said.

The author has something to say:

Nemo: I will give you a box of lunch, and you will give me a vaccine.

Jesse: Yes, yes.

↑↑↑A plain and simple deal.

—

Don’t get me wrong! This is not the climax of the whole book, there is another volume of this article… _(:””∠)_

Kinky Thoughts:

This chapter is so good! And it’s not the climax?!?!?!?! Yes, there is one more arc after this…