The Jester of Apocalypse

The rift appeared near the outer border of the capital, and like a worm biting past the apple’s skin, it gradually spread deeper into the settlement.

Countless sects jumped at the opportunity to be the heroes of the story and sent their best to protect the citizens. Many of those unsung heroes met their ends at the fangs and claws of the serpentine invasion.

Yet even those most eager for death avoided the winged lizard's domain.

There were plenty of people to evacuate and a whole load of silver-rank snakes to exterminate. Someone else could take the role of keeping the dragon fed.

A small group of gold path cultivators searched for those caught up in the blast radius of the dragon breath. Supremely cautiously. Nobody wanted to find themselves stuck in the path of purple demise.

Corpses littered the ruins. Anyone below the silver path that the intense energy had grazed had already perished or was well on their way.

They spotted something peculiar as they approached the edges of the destruction caused by the breath.

A trail of blood.

They assumed they would find a corpse at the trail's end, but the more they followed it, the longer it went. Eventually, the path of blood ended, and no corpse was found. There was no time to contemplate this.

Many snakes still slithered around, so it was likely that whoever it was had been eaten by now.

May the heavens bring them salvation, the cultivators thought as they changed their priority to snake extermination.

***

It was lucky that this rift didn’t release an undead invasion. If it had, Neave would likely have been mistaken for one of the invaders.

At first, he had used his shapeshifting skill to try and change his form into something more maneuverable than an open bag of organs, but his extensive injuries hindered the spirit power.

Thus, Neave resorted to crawling like a bloody slug. His body bled endlessly. As he hunted snakes and devoured them, usually by directly showing them into his open stomach, he regenerated his body and produced more blood.

The flesh remained attached, but the blood vacated his body through his countless wounds.

Neave assumed his distance from death spirit power allowed him to stay alive even in this form. That was the only thing that had stopped him from croaking after that ungodly blast by the dragon.

Neave wasn’t thinking about the dragon now, however. His focus was on carefully treading the line between almost-corpse and definitely-corpse.

He jumped from one snake to another, and gradually, almost-corpse won the fight. His body, on top of being reduced to a creepy demonic sect prop, had also been fried far past well done. The purple flames, energy, or whatever the hell that was, didn’t leave regular burns behind either.

It was as if his body had been crystalized on the cellular level. It took far more than just a few snakes to undo the damage the fire had caused.

Slowly but surely, Neave managed to consume enough to at least close his torso back up. Then he grew back small stumps which he extended with his shapeshifting power into quasi-limbs.

Eventually, he fully regrew his limbs back as well. This was just barely enough to allow him to function normally again. He was still short on skin practically everywhere on his body, and the blast had burned most of his muscles into stiff jerky that could only be moved by his shapeshifting spirit power.

Luckily for Neave, the snakes were packed with energy and practically everywhere. Now that he at least had a vaguely normal-shaped body, he could get to work.

Neave flew from one snake to another and slurped them like violet noodles. The sight of a skinless, charred Neave hopping around and eating snakes alive could keep any child up at night, probably well into adulthood.

That was the type of trauma that, luckily, most people had already evacuated from.

Neave could sense a lot of cultivators scurrying around the area, although the range of his spirit senses was limited. He avoided encountering anyone, mainly to avoid any misunderstandings.

Neave cursed as he realized his dimension ring was gone. He had moved everything into the dimension ring given to him by Maecy. And now it was just fucking gone. He didn’t know whether it had disintegrated or flown off somewhere in the distance.

Either way, with how far that blast had thrown him, there was no way he could find it anyway.

Surprisingly, Neave’s spirit wasn’t doing nearly as poorly as it should have been. Rather, he felt it recovering quite smoothly. He strongly suspected that had something to do with integrate being capable of digesting monster cores, but he couldn’t feel that happening.

Slowly but surely, he recovered his body as he hopped back toward the rift. Neave’s mind whirled as he contemplated his options.

What could he possibly do against this dragon?

***

Right below the rift open in the sky, another army of lizardmen was starting to gather. Some snakes were still slithering from the rift, but they served as little more than a distraction.

The lizardmen waited patiently, forming a line of defense around the perimeter as the dragon feasted on the corpses.

It wasn’t eating particularly fast. It was evident that it was taking its time to enjoy its meals. Suddenly, it perked up.

It sensed a mighty spirit approaching it from behind one of the larger buildings, although very well disguised. The dragon opened its mouth, preparing to blast the enemy into pieces before it could even see it coming.

The dragon blew breath toward the building, and an explosion of purple energy decimated the nearby area.

As the smoke settled, it noticed that in place of the now-annihilated building, there was an earthen ramp. Countless wisps of purple energy dissipated through the atmosphere as it appeared that the ramp had redirected its attack toward the sky.

The mighty spirit walked from behind the ramp, maintaining a casual pace. As it stepped into the light, the dragon faced the enemy directly.

A fully armored human stood before it. But it sensed something unusual. It felt human, but the dragon could sense a distinct undertone from beneath the armor.

The human pulled a gigantic axe from its dimension ring and lifted it into the air.

The three ethereal figures formed a line of defense. The little girl raised the earth to create a barrier, the tall man plated it in purple crystal, and the muscular one ran past to flank the enemy.

As the muscular one jumped toward the armored figure, it surprisingly managed to land a perfect kick straight at the torso of the invader. The armored man didn’t even budge. White mist surrounded the enemy invader, and a massive axe materialized above them.

***

Neave saw the giant white axe form in the sky as he approached the rift. The earth sank a bit as it descended, and he felt the ground drop beneath his feet. The shockwave from the tremendous technique flattened a giant area around the rift, not quite reaching Neave or any of the places that still had cultivators running around.

But the aftershock still reached Neave mentally.

He approached the last few buildings standing and observed the aftermath. Neave gaped at the massive crater left behind by the technique. He spotted the dragon crawling out of a crystal dome it had constructed to defend itself while the ghastly figures flickered in and out of existence as they restabilized.

Neave wasn’t looking at any of this, however. He stared at the armored man.

The cultivator that had arrived was clearly on the diamond path. He was well outside Neave’s spirit sense range, but Neave didn’t need those to tell that this person was a league above platinum path cultivators.

Even though the man was outside his spirit senses, Neave felt something was off—terribly so.

His heartbeat sped up. Was he just afraid of the power this man held? No, that wasn’t it. There was a characteristic in his movements. A peculiarity in his posture. Neave’s perception was telling him something, but he couldn’t understand, or perhaps he didn’t want to.

He witnessed the man enveloped in white mist again. The cultivator flew and fought through the purple figures, dodging or ignoring their attacks as he charged toward the dragon.

With every strike, Neave’s blood flowed a bit faster; with every movement, his hair stood taller.

Once enough of the cultivator’s qi residue reached Neave, he finally realized what felt off.

The qi felt wrong. Simulated. There was a layer that wrapped over its true essence. An essence that Neave could recognize anywhere.

It made no sense. That was absurd.

This was a diamond path cultivator sent by the empire itself.

So how the hell is this person a demon?

Neave’s heart pounded, and his crystal veins crackled and chimed beneath his skin. He wanted to fight. He wanted to kill the dragon and interrogate the demon, peel the armor off, and see for himself what lay beneath. He wanted to ask what it was doing here.

He wanted to ask what its goals were.

And he wanted to ask whether it was connected to the devils.

It had to be. Or maybe it didn’t. Neave honestly didn’t understand enough about demons to conclude anything. Most of his dislike came from his experience within the loop and his hatred of the devil that created it.

But… Well, he didn’t really like the gods either. Or humans, honestly. Shit, Neave seemed to hate everyone. Regardless of race, it was evident that anyone could be a shitty individual. Granted, the demons had a reputation, one they definitely earned. There was so much he wanted to know about this demon.

Seriously, what the fuck is happening?

Neave wanted to get in there and fight, but, well… That was unrealistic. The dragon reduced him to a roasted bag of overcooked organs with a single breath, and that was ignoring the fact that its pink puppets alone were too much for him to handle.

Yet, he still wanted to fight. He felt a deep itch all over his body to rush in there. First of all, how dare that fucking dragon do that to him?

Didn’t he say there would be no weaknesses? Didn’t he say there would be no limits? Didn’t he say that there would be no compromise?

Neave knew he was getting ahead of himself. He took a few deep breaths to relax. This wasn’t his fight, not yet. There was no need to rush. He needed what? Months? Weeks? Days?

If he correctly utilized the mysterious realm he entered whenever he fell unconscious, he could make insane progress rapidly. There was no need to take a stupid risk.

He knew it wouldn’t be that simple, but he ignored that. He would circumvent the complications that arose, one way or another.

That was right. He could step back and wait. Soon he would be powerful enough to do whatever he wanted. Neave tried turning around to step back, but his hand was stuck.

When he arrived here, he had peeked from behind a building and grabbed a metal rod to lean on it.

He had squeezed it so hard that the metal completely deformed under his grip.

Who am I kidding?

Neave grinned. He freed his hand and started walking toward the fight.

Neave paused. There was a spirit behind him, veiled heavily, but it was one that he recognized.

He continued walking after a mere second of hesitation. It was nothing but a coincidence, and it wasn’t unusual enough to make him stop until he realized that the spirit was heading straight for him.

A cloaked cultivator wearing a pitch-black cloak ran toward him. It was the green-haired boy from the library, or rather, Dukean.

Is he approaching me?

Why? Neave wanted to turn around and head to the fight, but his curiosity was killing him. Neave was unsure what this young man wanted from him, especially now that he was disguised. He waited, and eventually, Dukean approached him.

Once Dukean stood in front of him, he bowed a little.

“I apologize for my rudeness. I know my timing is awful, but there is something essential I have to talk to you about.” Dukean raised his gaze and stared Neave right into his eyes, “How much do you know about demons?”