Chapter 588: A Condition
It is hard to find words to describe Fisher’s feelings at this moment, as even he cannot articulate them; he can only simply feel it in his heart.
He just feels very satisfied, very pleased, as if his soul has been cleansed and is incredibly light.
It seems that everything that just happened was a grand and ecstatic dream, transcending the ordinary experiences of biological beings. The feeling of fulfillment far exceeds the limits of what the body can perceive, igniting his long-held feelings for Jasmine, whether it be affection or guilt.
But even such feelings, such dreams seem to have an end. After an unknown amount of time has passed, Fisher’s awareness gradually awakens, slowly withdrawing from this intoxicating sensation and returning to the real world.
What meets his eyes is still the extremely dim castle hall of Eil, surrounded by the scent of niter. That slightly pungent smell makes him more awake than before, and his body gradually returns from that refreshing state, feeling the presence of the whale folk girl tightly pressed against him.
It is the sleeping Jasmine.
He is slightly taken aback, gazing at Jasmine’s still flushed face as she sleeps soundly. He instinctively reaches out to touch her slightly damp blue hair, hoping to feel everything about this girl who has become a part of him, but the tingling sensation in his hand stops him. The restraints of lightning remain bound to his hands, but they are no longer tied to the head of the bed.
Originally, Fisher only intended to have a brief experience of punishing Jasmine. For such matters, he still desired to maintain control (with the exception of Hela, as for some reason, she always manages to take the lead).
However, Jasmine’s presence is too overwhelming; he simply cannot refuse, so he allows her to act, letting her punish him enough.
“Awake?”
Just as Fisher is blankly gazing at the face of his sleeping lover, a voice from the darkness beside him startles him, prompting him to quickly turn his head, where he sees Eil standing in the shadows, arms crossed.
He swallows hard, but quickly thinks to himself that after Jasmine’s “punishment,” thanks to the “Reproduction Enhancement” ability given by the Supplement Handbook for Sub-Humans, his soul energy is now replenished and back to normal.
“Eil, where have you been?”
“Not just now, do you not even have a concept of how long ago it was? It seems you are not just making progress in rank, but also in that regard. Tsk, I do regret giving this opportunity to that whale folk.”
In the darkness, Eil steps forward, but her foot accidentally bumps into a fallen glass bottle on the floor, causing it to roll and make some noise.
She lowers her head, glances at it, and says, “Did this guy actually let you use this?”
“Are you talking about the medicine she gave me? What is it?”
“It’s a secret medicine from the Demon God Cidi, I wagered with him earlier, and when he lost, he gave me this treasure.”
“A bet?”
Eil smiles slightly, walks over to the bed, gives Fisher a once-over, and says, “He bet with me to see if he could catch Barbatos. If he lost, he had to give me all his proud treasures, but if he won, I would give him a precious weapon. He lost, and in the end, Barbatos was the one who caught him.”
“Is the rumor about him and Barbatos true?”
Feeling her scrutinizing gaze, even Fisher feels a bit uncomfortable, especially since a certain Jasmine is still lying on him.
“It’s mostly true, but people have some misunderstandings about Cidi’s image. He doesn’t indulge in lechery. As mythical beings, we would not easily submit to others. It’s just that he has a natural need to consume Fallen Nature, which makes it appear chaotic and often leads to disaster and moral decay. Other beings are simply too weak, their consciousness too unsteady; to us they are merely ‘food.’ But, ironically, he has cultivated animosity with a certain powerful elf and has been placed in peril multiple times. However, Barbatos saved him, and he has thus been intertwined with Barbatos since then.”
Listening to these secrets, Fisher does not continue to question the relationship between “Cidi and Barbatos” as he is uninterested and instead inquires, “Since you demons are all like this, and even Cidi, who is skilled in this domain, is not what others think, why did you…”
“What’s the matter? You think I’m too casual?”
Eil shoots a flat look at Fisher, who quickly shakes his head and replies, “No, it’s just that I did not expect your reasons for doing so. Besides, I can feel that you at that time had never had such experiences… I don’t even think I had anything that could attract you, even though at that time I didn’t know your true nature was actually an 18th rank Demon God.”
“…”
Upon hearing this, Eil simply looks at him, her gaze somewhat enigmatic. Fisher vaguely senses that she is brewing a concrete answer — an answer to a question he has long been puzzled about, but this answer seems to linger on her lips, unspoken, leaving only silence.
After an evident silence, she suddenly yawns and shifts to another topic, “This little whale folk doesn’t even know what punishment is. She let you take this medicine, which, instead of letting you both suffer, left me as the only one feeling annoyed.”
“So, what exactly does this medicine do?”
Fisher senses that she does not want to discuss the answer, so he refrains from asking why she gave her precious first time to him, instead continuing to follow her train of thought empathetically, “What does it do? It allows you both to love each other more. Though thinking again, it’s actually quite good; at least Baemon probably prefers to see you getting along with other women, that’s for sure.”
No, Fisher thinks that if Hela discovered this, he would definitely be in trouble.
Wait, isn’t she always secretly watching me? Could it be that she already knows now?
Fisher swallows hard, not responding to Eil’s taunting remark.
“…”
Yet indeed, Fisher feels that the love he just shared with Jasmine reached its peak. There was even a moment when Fisher found himself thinking, “I can only have Jasmine in this life; there cannot be others.” Such a frightening thought, and even when she used the whip to punish him, he felt nothing wrong with it. It seems that it all stems from the power of Cidi’s God’s potion.
That being said, Fisher’s peripheral vision catches a glimpse of Eil with a slight smirk on her lips, as if sensing that Eil’s attitude towards other women related to him is not as confrontational as with Hela.
If Eil were like other ladies, with his current appearance presented before her, she might have his head cut off and kicked around like a ball. Only Eil can stand here chatting by the bed. Yet Eil does not appear entirely calm, and neither does Fisher seem anything close to natural for that matter.
After a lengthy silence, he suddenly speaks up, “Sorry, Eil.”
“Sorry for what? Is it about Baemon or this little whale folk and other women?”
“… Both, and for what I just said.”
“…”
Eil sits down at the edge of the bed and gazes directly at him, then suddenly reaches out to gently pinch his cheek, as if to stroke him affectionately, as though this would make her very happy. After that, she says, “I was just out for a walk, trying to find Ag, but she is no longer here, and it’s not like her soul is missing like mine, but her very being is gone.”
Upon hearing this, cold sweat breaks out on Fisher’s forehead, and he cannot help but ask, “You didn’t try to contact her, did you?”
“… Not yet. Why?”
Fisher breathes a sigh of relief and gestures for her to untie the ropes on his hands. She laughs while doing so, saying, “Oh, you’re now at Mythical Rank, do you still need my help?”
“… You are after all my teacher; seeking help from a teacher is nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Grumble~”
A comfortable rumble comes from her stomach, and then she removes the bonds from him, saying, “Now, what is it?”
Fisher gently places the peacefully sleeping Jasmine beside him, then sits up. As he gets up, he notices some injuries on his body, remnants of Jasmine’s “punishment,” along with a bit of soreness.
But Fisher still takes the time to tell Eil about Hela’s plans to release the two Demon Gods from the Demon Dynasty, while also mentioning their objective for entering the Demon Dynasty.
“Base.”
Eil frowns, rubbing her forehead with a slight headache, and sighs, “Those two are just desperate and ridiculous enough to trust Baemon, the slyest fox in the world. I would not believe it if they weren’t conned completely. Just now, I also strolled around the vicinity of the ‘Gate of Knowledge.’ Baemon’s palace is nearly abandoned; she hasn’t been back for ages, leaving me unable to deliver the surprise I prepared for her. Otherwise, I would have liked to invite her over to watch the livestream.”
Fisher’s body stiffens at this, cold sweat beading on his forehead.
He did not expect that Eil could really act so ruthlessly as to come up with such a vile plan, and if Hela had been there, and actually came to watch the livestream… he couldn’t even imagine that scene.
“What are you looking at? I’ve said it’s punishment. Since you enjoyed it, why are you now having second thoughts? But at that time, I didn’t know what happened, and thankfully she wasn’t there. But if she had been present, whether you could get in here is still uncertain.”
Eil yawns, pointing a finger at Fisher, clearly still annoyed about Baemon from earlier, which leaves a lingering impression on her.
“So they still don’t know you’re here?”
“Yeah, but I don’t know how long I can delay this. I have two purposes for coming here: one is to find the base Baemon used to alter Mother’s seal, and the other is to find a way to kill the ‘Undying.'”
“Undying? Are you talking about your companion?”
Fisher is slightly taken aback and asks, “Do you know where he is?”
“Ah, I saw him just now outside, right by the Competitive Gate. He was nearly running towards the Lust Gate. His death was stolen; it’s very similar to what happened with that human king. It was used by Ag to make the Death Rune.”
“Besides that weapon she made to deal with Erwind, did she make another Death Rune earlier?”
“Yeah, but I don’t know what she used it for; it should have been used to kill some existence.”
Which means, whether it’s Holland or Solomon, their deaths losing substance is because Ag stole their death to create Death Runes.
This makes sense; pursuing Erwind shouldn’t be too long ago — at most a decade — exactly coinciding with what happened to Holland.
But at the same time, Fisher has a question and cannot help but ask Eil, “If that’s the case, then isn’t this kind of ‘undying’ like a blessing for others, an attribute that cannot die regardless of circumstances sounds very powerful, and it can form weapons. Why doesn’t Ag apply such methods to herself, or is there some special requirement for this process?”
“Ah, you’re right. There are special requirements for this technique’s target. It has to resonate with the authority of death, and it must be a being of sufficiently weak rank. The death-chasing mechanism will elevate the death power targeting humans to the 20th rank, which is already very difficult to control. If it were to rise beyond the power of the True God, Ag would not be able to control it, and it would carry significant risks. After all, the authority of death is not peaceful. If it goes out of control, it would spell disaster for us and the entire world.”
Eil nods, then glances at the peacefully sleeping Jasmine beside Fisher. For some reason, a malicious thought stirs within her, prompting her to suddenly lean over and give Fisher a quick kiss, before recoiling a bit with a puzzled look on his face.
Fisher touches his lips where she kissed him and cannot help but ask, “What are you doing?”
“Nothing, just continue.”
Eil smiles, her tail swaying playfully behind her, looking like a mischievous cat, leaving Fisher at a loss for words, so he has no choice but to ask, “What should I do to make the person whose death was stolen die again?”
“… Isn’t he your companion? Why do you want him to die so much?”
“He wants to die himself, and besides, I do need him to die so that I can obtain the completion manual on him.”
“You already have more than one completion manual, right? You should know you can’t read more than one. Otherwise, the conflicting chaos would turn you into a monster. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”
“I’ve already read two.”
Eil’s words falter slightly, looking at the Fisher in front of her, confirming that he is still the same as before, not some lunatic, before she continues to answer Fisher’s question.
“There’s no other method unless he confronts the authority of death directly. Otherwise, he cannot die, but that’s impossible.”
“Impossible?”
“Yeah, how did you get in here? Through the teleportation gate?”
“I came in from the Competitive Gate.”
“Ah, then this makes things easier.”
Eil, arms crossed, nods while saying, “You don’t know much about the Demon Dynasty. In essence, the existence of the Demon Dynasty is merely to suppress the authority of death hidden beneath it. And those ten gates aren’t just passageways for us to enter and exit. In fact, even if we want to pass through there, it is very troublesome; otherwise, we wouldn’t need to build so many external teleportation gates. Those ten gates are actually the ‘seal’ of the Death Rune, a physical manifestation formed from the ‘Sea of Chaos’ before our existence.”
Fisher is slightly taken aback, suddenly recalling the black ocean he jumped into to save Hela. The extremely rich chaotic power contained within that black ocean is actually transformed into those ten gates. This means that the so-called “Yin-Yang Sea” he saw earlier is actually part of the chaotic body’s power?
“With those ten gates present, the authority of death cannot manifest. Even Ag, who excels in this domain, can only cast spells by linking to the authority of death with the outside world. But once all the gates are fully opened and the authority of death manifests, it will incite disaster. At that time, it would probably be even more terrifying and severe than facing those two Demon Gods directly.”
What to do then? He called the Death Lord over from Cardu, and now that he finally managed to get in, he has to tell him that there’s really no way to make him die?
Not to mention that, the key issue is that right now he can’t finish reading the Life Completion Manual. If he doesn’t have the Death Completion Manual, he could at best only reach 16th rank. Even with Eil’s help, it would be hard to confront the two Demon Gods.
Or he could find the base Hela placed before the two Demon Gods do?
Fisher rubs his temples, feeling a bit of a headache. From the corner of his eye, he glances at Eil. He certainly hasn’t forgotten his purpose for coming here.
Besides that, he genuinely desires this demon; he came seeking her help, but the unforeseen circumstances make it hard for him to speak up.
But time is of the essence, and he musters his courage to say, “… Eil, I don’t know anything about this place; I need your help.”
“Well, helping you isn’t out of the question, as I do have a fondness for you. Moreover, this matter, in essence, is also because of that guy Baemon, but…”
Eil turns her head to look at Fisher, her smile lazy yet wicked, like a true demon. This gives Fisher an unsettling premonition.
“But?”
“There’s a condition. If you agree, I will help you, and it will be unconditional help. You know I’m the most lenient and fond of you.”
“So what is the condition?”
Fisher’s ominous premonition deepens, and Eil’s smile grows more profound as she glances at the mark on Fisher’s chest and then says, “Hehe, I want you to say now, ‘I am Eil’s person, not Baemon’s.’ No, wait, you must say it in a more intimate way.”
“You have to say, ‘I am Eil’s person, not Hela’s.'”
The surrounding darkness suddenly becomes deep, as if some invisible existence is watching Fisher along with the smiling Eil, waiting for his answer.
