章節 123: Upper ranks (2)
I leave Darwin's office in a bit of a daze and only snap out of it when I arrive at the gym. Why did I come here?
<Sometimes you subconsciously know what's good for you. When you need to digest some heavy info dumps exercise is often a beneficial factor.>
I walk over to the tracks and start to lightly jog. The breathing technique that Edward taught me is circulating by itself so I don't have to think about it but now I try to focus on my breathing.
<Anyway, since you already know most of the important stuff let me tell you the rest. There are four more halls that we frequently deal with. There are the hero and saint halls each headed by the hero king and saint king respectively. They don't have a limit on how many people they can recruit but instead have certain conditions that new members need to fulfill. Then there's the ocean hall headed by ocean emperor. Their members are called the ocean born and they are quasi-immortal. Lastly, there is the demon hall headed by abyssal emperor. They have 10 demon ghost generals and a thousand demon ghost soldiers but their numbers cannot increase. However, as the battle goes on they get stronger the more of them die.>
Sounds like the ocean and demon hall are the hardest to deal with. Those abilities both sound like they are cheating.
<Look who's talking. But yes, they are fairly hard to deal with. To go into it a little deeper, the ocean born are bound to a special ocean where they were... made. When they die their bodies dissolve into water and they reform within the ocean. The reason we only call them quasi-immortal is that there is a downside. Every time they get reformed the call of the ocean gets stronger and they are forced to return to the ocean periodically. The more they die the less time they can spend outside before being called back. This continues until they eventually become part of the ocean.>
So basically kill them over and over until they don't come back? Sounds doable considering we can come back an unlimited amount of times. What about the demon hall?
<If you kill one of the demon ghost soldiers the demon ghost inside the corpse can be taken by another demon ghost soldier to strengthen the other soldier. Soldiers can take up to ten demon ghosts including their own. Demon ghost generals can take a hundred demon ghosts excluding their own and abyssal emperor can take all of them. To make sure you don't misunderstand, the demon ghost isn't the soldier's soul or spirit but rather an entity that attaches itself to them.>
But wouldn't abyssal emperor be stronger if he took all the demon ghosts into his body from the beginning?
<At that moment, yes, but the strengthening effect is decided by the individual demon ghosts' strength. They can only grow if they are the main ghost attached to a human.>
So this abyssal emperor gives the demon ghosts to others in order to raise them before taking them for himself to use that strength he let others raise?
<That about covers it.>
Wouldn't that mean that he can only grow stronger?
<A valid concern. However, demon ghosts can be killed using spiritual or soul-based attacks. A new demon ghost is then reborn from abyssal emperor to bring the number back up to what it needs to be. The newly born demon ghost will of course be weak and needs to be raised by being attached to a human from scratch.>
So, how do I learn spiritual or soul-based attacks?
<Skills related to spirit and soul are usually among the hardest to learn since they affect something your normal senses can't pick up on. The way we recommend to get them is to first practice a skill that can allow you to pick up on such things with one of your senses before trying to learn to manipulate it. You already have the soul vision skill so just train that for now.>
Wait a minute... If soul skills can hurt the soul... Couldn't I be permanently killed if I was struck by a soul-based attack after my physical body dies?
<In theory.>
What about in practice?
<Nigh impossible. The way we use to retrieve your soul is unique and your soul is protected by the contract you made with us. The only way to permanently kill you would be to forcefully crush the contract's power and then attack you.>
Do you know of any person who could do that?
<...>
Who is it?!!
<Sigh. We don't know for certain but Being X can allegedly strike through any obstacles. We have no records to prove that but the powers of his censors and arbiters have similar properties. They aren't strong enough to overcome the contracts but Being X's power can't be estimated with our current means.>
So if I meet this Being X dude I just run like hell?
<Assuming you can that would be advisable. Unfortunately, we truly know next to nothing about him for certain. Rumors say he never attacks first and only counterattacks but when he does it is fatal.>
What's the source of these rumors?
<Apologies, your clearance level is too low to access such information.>
So it's one of the dungeon masters, got it.
<I can neither deny nor confirm that.>
Looks like I am right then. But let's not provoke whoever it is who values their privacy. Can I get a clearer picture of what it is that I am supposed to do now?
<Sigh, Hades wants to see you and spend as much time as you can to shore up the defenses of his dungeon. He got pretty close to being conquered last time so he is extremely antsy since the halls started moving again.>
When did they start to move again?
<Remember the dungeon you defended against those shield-bearers whose armor turned out to be golems? We had to deal with them personally and discovered a hero and two saints among them. Similar sightings came from all our branches. It feels like they were testing us.>
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