Chapter 994: Soul Interrogation (Part II)
For a moment, Roland wanted to say: Are you also a member of Tadarin? Forgive me — I didn’t recognize you. He discarded the impulse. He was here to interrogate a demon, and undercutting his own authority would cost him more than the joke was worth.
The Mind Resonance allowed the demon to understand and speak human language — but when it encountered a word with no equivalent in its own tongue, it had to paraphrase. The risk of misunderstanding ran both ways.
Instead of answering, the demon unraveled into barely coherent outrage.
“This makes no sense! You’ve never entered the Sky-sea Realm. You could never enter the Sky-sea Realm. Without that, how could you acquire a legacy shard? But if you don’t have one, how could you defeat me? You’re lying. I, Kabradhabi, will never believe you.”
The soul transfer had stripped away whatever composure the demon might otherwise have mustered. Roland pressed the advantage before it could rebuild its walls.
“You need more specifics? Your army failed to lure us into a trap and had to engage in the open field. Before they could close the distance, they were already taking heavy casualties. You personally joined the fight to reverse things — and the moment you landed, the God’s Punishment Witches shot you down. The fight between you and the witches lasted roughly ten seconds, and it was she who led them to beat you.” He tilted his head toward Zooey. “Read her memory. You’ll see how vulnerable you looked.”
“You—” The voice coming from Zooey’s throat faltered.
Zooey’s expression shifted — she was showing the demon what had happened. In Mind Resonance, information moved faster than speech. It only took a moment.
“You can’t undo the battle by denying it,” Roland said. “And your logic is absurd. You claim we couldn’t possibly have a legacy shard because we’ve never entered the Sky-sea Realm? Let’s align our terms first. If you won’t tell me what a legacy shard actually is, how am I supposed to confirm or deny your assumption? Maybe we have one and don’t consider it particularly significant.”
“Stupid bug — you must be joking.” The demon’s anger sharpened into something colder. “It’s the cause of the Battle of Divine Will. It determines the fate of species. You think it’s not precious?”
Pasha went still. “Wait. Does the shard look like a red crystal? Spindle-shaped? Does it draw anyone near it into a vast hall, where they see incredible things?”
“The relics of gods!” Tilly said, low and stunned.
“You call them the relics of gods.” The contempt was almost musical. “As expected, you are nothing but low-grade crawlers. They have nothing to do with deities. Each species has one such shard. They can upgrade themselves by consuming it — and once they lose it, they become prey. Now do you understand how ignorant you are? While those underground cowards were dying out, you were hiding in a corner. How could you possibly have claimed their legacy?”
Roland’s heart kicked.
Four picture scrolls. Four civilizations. A civilization must defeat another to take its relic. During the first Battle of Divine Will, when the underground civilization collapsed, we were occupied fighting demons. It would have been impossible to take anything from them.
He looked around. Every face in the room had gone serious. They had all understood simultaneously.
Two things had just become clear. First: what the demon said confirmed what the Taquila witches had suspected about the relics. He remembered Wendy saying, once — How come we’ve fought for hundreds of years over a useless stone? The Divine Will is so cruel. Now he understood: the relic was not merely symbolic. Losing it meant becoming food for the victor. No side in this war would ever accept terms. The battle would only end with someone’s extinction.
Second: the demons had already upgraded. Kabradhabi hadn’t explained the process directly, but it attributed all of their advances — the skeleton monsters, the new species, the novel weapons — to having consumed the underground civilization’s legacy.
Is that how it works? Swallow a relic and inherit the knowledge of the civilization that owned it?
Even the industrial revolution didn’t work that way. That had required raw materials and trained workers and decades of accumulated experiment. This sounded like force-transfer from a martial arts novel — one species inherits another’s entire body of knowledge in a single act. If a civilization lost its relic, it lost everything — not just the war, but its future.
Which means this isn’t just important news. It’s the mechanism that drives the whole thing.
And yet knowing the mechanism didn’t hand them a path to victory. Humanity had been fighting without a clear understanding of what they were fighting over. That was why they’d kept losing. But understanding it now didn’t conjure the strength they lacked.
We’ve wasted too much time on infighting.
Roland’s mouth had gone dry. He wet his lips and chose the most essential question from among all the ones competing for space in his mind.
“You also call this war the Battle of Divine Will. Does that mean you believe it’s arranged by deities?”
“That’s how you interpret Divine Will?” The voice steadied — more controlled now. The demon had used the silence to compose itself. “Well. It may not be so bad to let you know the truth before you die. Listen, bugs. The battle has nothing to do with deities. It is a contest among civilizations. The final winner will complete an upgrade and open the door to the Fountain of Magic. When that happens, the winner’s will becomes the Divine Will. But forget it — stupid crawlers. You will never reach that point. You are already destined to perish.”
“How do you know that?”
“What? You think I, Kabradhabi, will keep talking to you?” Contempt, flat and final.
“What do you mean?” Something shifted — a wrongness Roland couldn’t name immediately. “Zooey?”
“I’m afraid this female cannot hear you at the moment.” The voice was cold now, stripped of the demon’s earlier emotional turbulence. Stripped of Zooey entirely. “You used a soul-transfer trick to confuse my mind and then a mind-reading ability to probe my thoughts. Bugs — you have made no progress in hundreds of years.” A pause. “You dare to play such tricks on me. You have brought this on yourselves. I am Kabradhabi. I cannot control this body yet. But that doesn’t mean I cannot use my magic power.”
“Camilla!” Roland’s voice cut across the hall.
“It’s too late. Say goodbye to this female.”
A sharp laugh — and then Zooey’s mouth closed.
Camilla Dary had gone the color of chalk. “The soul in the God’s Punishment Warrior,” she said, barely above a whisper, “has disappeared.”
Chapter 994: Soul Interrogation (Part Ⅱ)
Translator: TransN Editor: TransN
For a moment, Roland wanted to joke with the demon by saying, “You are also a member of Tadarin? Forgive me. I didn’t recognize you.” However, he gave up on this idea eventually.
After all, he came here to interrogate the demon. He did not want to undermine his own authority. In the state of Mind Resonance, the demon could manage to understand and speak the human language, but when it came across a word without counterpart in its own language, it would paraphrase the word. Given that, it might misunderstand or misuse the most common words in the human language.
Instead of answering Roland’s questions, the demon rambled in agony.
“No, it doesn’t make sense! You’ve never entered into the Sky-sea Realm, and you’ll never be able to do so. How can you get a legacy shard? But if you don’t have one, how come you can defeat me? You are lying. I, Kabradhabi will never believe you!”
As the demon’s soul had been transferred into the God’s Punishment Warrior, it could hardly control its own emotions during this moment. Before the interrogation, Roland had decided to grab this opportunity to delude the demon into leaking information which it would never mention under normal circumstances. He continued to push the demon. “Do you need more hints? You failed to lure my army into your trap and had to confront us on the battlefield, but before your army got close to us, they suffered heavy casualties. You led your troops to join the fight, wanting to revert this situation. As soon as you landed, however, you got shot down by the God’s
Punishment Witches. The fight between you and the witches lasted about ten seconds, and she’s the one who led the witches to defeat you. Try to read her memory and then you’ll see how vulnerable you appeared on the battleground.”
“You—” Suddenly, the Senior Demon looked depressed.
Zooey interrupted the demon by showing it what had happened during the battle. It took her just a moment since the Mind Resonance significantly accelerated the pace of information exchange.
“You can’t change the result of the battle by denying it, and your thought sounds ridiculous to me.” Roland sneered. “We’ve never been to the Sky-sea Realm, so we can’t own a legacy shard? I suggest we unify the concept first. If you don’t tell me what a legacy shard is, how can I answer your question? Maybe in our eyes, it isn’t a valuable thing at all.”
“Stupid bug, you must be joking.” Kabradhabi sounded very angry. “It’s the cause of the Battle of Divine Will and determines the fate of the species. You think it’s not precious!?”
Pasha suddenly thought of something. “Wait, does the shard look like a red crystal? Is it shaped like a spindle and able to bring anyone close to it into a spacious hall where he or she will see something incredible?”
“The relics of gods!” Tilly exclaimed in a deep voice.
“You call them the relics of gods? Sure enough, you are just low-grade crawlers,” the demon responded scornfully. “They’ve nothing to do with deities. Each species has a shard like that. They can upgrade themselves by swallowing it, and once they lose it, they will become food for the other species. Now, do you realize how stupid you are? When those underground cowards died out, you still hid in a corner on the ground. How could you get their legacy?”
Hearing this, Roland’s heart suddenly jumped. That’s why it was so sure that human beings couldn’t get a shard or a relic. The four picture scrolls represent four different civilizations. A civilization had to defeat another to
obtain its legacy. During the first Battle of Divine Will, when the underground civilization was extinct, we were busy fighting against demons. It’s impossible for us to rob the underground civilization of its relic.
He looked around and found that everyone had a grave look on their face. Apparently, everybody realized that they had just heard important information.
First of all, what the demon said confirmed what the Taquila witches had thought about the relics. Roland still remembered that Wendy had exclaimed, “How come we’ve fought for hundreds of years just because of a useless stone? The Divine Will is so cruel.” Now he found that a relic not only determined the survival of civilization but also had high practical value for another civilization. That meant no party in this battle would be willing to conciliate.
Secondly, according to Kabradhabi, demons had already upgraded themselves. Though it did not mention the specific process of swallowing a relic, it apparently attributed all the progress that a species made and the invention of new weapons, to the relic. Roland could not help wondering. Maybe, they can inherit the knowledge accumulated by another species by swallowing a relic. Given that, did they create the giant skeleton monsters and the strange demons based on the technology of the underground civilization?
This is incredible. Even the industrial revolution can’t achieve this kind of effect. Such a revolution needs lots of raw materials and professional workers, and it only happens when there’s an enormous technological breakthrough. In comparison, inheriting knowledge by swallowing a relic sounds like force transfer in kungfu fiction. A species will be extinct and lose everything to its opponent after losing its relic? If it’s true, it’s indeed a fearful secret.
No, it can’t be counted as a secret. It’s important news for human beings, but it won’t affect the result of the Battle of Divine Will. For any party in this war, knowing the importance of the relics won’t guarantee the ultimate victory. Human beings have never had a proper idea about the relics until now. That’s why we can’t rally for the fight for the past thousands of years
and lost again and again in the battles. Human beings can’t compete with the other species depicted in the painting scrolls.
We’ve wasted too much time on in-fighting.
Roland’s mouth went dry. He licked his lips and picked out the most crucial question among all the thoughts went through his mind.
“As you also refer to this war as Battle of Divine Will, do you believe that it’s arranged by deities?”
“That’s how you think of Divine Will?” The Senior Demon sounded much calmer this time, which was probably because it had remained quiet for a long time and had a chance to prepare during this period of time. “Well, it seems not bad to let you know the truth before you die out. Listen carefully, bugs. The battle has nothing to do with the deities. It’s just among the civilizations. The final winner will be able to upgrade and open the door to the Fountain of Magic. When that happens, the winner will gain omnipotent power and his will become the Divine Will! But, forget about it, stupid crawlers. You’ll never get such a chance. You are doomed to perish!”
“How do you know that?”
“What? Do you think that I, Kabradhab, will continue to talk to you?” The senior demon sneered.
“What do you mean?” Suddenly, Roland noticed something wrong and called out, “Zooey?”
“I’m afraid that this female can’t hear your voice for the moment. You used a soul-transferring trick to confuse my mind and then used mind-reading ability to read my thoughts. Bugs, you really haven’t made any progress for the past hundreds of years.” Zooey now sounded cold and heartless. “You dare to play magic tricks on me. You are headed for trouble. I’m Kabradhabi. Though I can’t control this body, for now, that doesn’t mean I can’t use my magic power!”
“Camilla!” Roland shouted to Chief Butler of Sleeping Island.
“It’s too late. Say goodbye to this female!”
With shrill laughter, Zooey closed her mouth. Camilla Dary went pale as if she could not believe what had happened. “The soul in the God’s Punishment Warrior… disappeared!”