Chapter 627 – The Temptation of Souls

Just because the witches had this vigilance, and had Lady Carmela’s Contract Magic ready to help at any moment, didn’t mean everyone else did.

Judging by the Dawn Society members’ reactions to the disguised demons in their midst, it was clear that quite a few people had unknowingly signed their names on items the demons had presented to them.

Though most of them remained unharmed for now, this was by no means demonic mercy — it was simply because they weren’t the primary targets.

The demons had carefully maintained these superficial relationships only to deepen their disguises, making it easier to get close to their true prey — the witches.

But even though these people weren’t the main targets, the demons would never pass up souls ripe for the taking.

Nine times out of ten, they had already quietly placed marks on these people’s souls — like patient fishermen casting invisible nets among schools of fish, simply waiting for the moment their prey’s life came to an end. When the soul was about to leave the body, these marks would silently ensnare it, delivering it back into the demons’ hands.

Now, with the complete exposure of these demons’ identities, the social networks they had so painstakingly constructed had collapsed. They could no longer use their former disguises to approach the witches.

These marked humans, Elves, and Dwarves had thus lost their utility to the demons.

Under these circumstances, would the demons still patiently wait for their prey to die naturally before harvesting their souls? The answer was likely not encouraging.

The only consolation was that not a single witch appeared on the list of those who had been marked.

At this moment, Mo Lan couldn’t help feeling a pang of regret.

If she hadn’t let the affinity system automatically set the demons’ racial affinity to “-100” according to its rules, hadn’t expelled them all from the Dawn Society, she might still be able to use the Card Magic traces left through these people to locate the demons’ hiding places on the surface world.

Extracting intelligence by scouring these demons’ memories would be far safer than venturing deep into the Abyss where demons held sway.

After all, no one knew what these harvested souls were actually being used for.

Mo Lan had conducted extensive experiments. The Book of Cards could use corpses as materials to create complete {Corpse Cards} — even human corpses were no exception — but it had never been able to create living {Creature Cards} from living organisms.

At first, she thought this was a restriction applying to all living things, until she later discovered that non-sentient plants were the exception. She could create cards like {A Small Daisy in Full Bloom} — {Living Plant Cards} that continued to grow after being materialized.

This discovery gave her an epiphany: what the Book of Cards couldn’t process wasn’t “life” itself, but the presence of a “soul.”

All sentient plants, wild beasts, magical beasts, elemental beings, and even the intelligent races — as long as they possessed a soul, they couldn’t be fully replicated.

Sentience was the hallmark of a soul having been born.

In fact, the Book of Cards could only produce a scant few soul-related cards, such as {Material Card – Soul Essence} and {Material Card – Heart of the Ghost Ship}. But these were merely materials derived from soul energy, not souls themselves.

Among all the myriad races of the Continent of Valen, only demons had mastered the forbidden art of manipulating living souls.

How exactly did they accomplish this? And how did they use souls to enhance themselves? These critical pieces of information remained unsolved mysteries.

Every race’s understanding of demons was built entirely upon painful historical lessons, which could be summed up in three points.

First, demons were masters of dark magic — a form of sorcery even more sinister and vicious than Dark-element Magic.

Second, their contracts were the key tools for harvesting souls.

Third, true names were a demon’s fatal weakness.

Beyond that, the other races knew virtually nothing about demons. This was perhaps partly because they always operated under disguises, and every word they spoke was an indistinguishable mix of truth and lies.

Such a cunning and treacherous race, lurking in the shadows like venomous serpents for centuries upon centuries, never abandoning their covetous designs on witch souls — the mere thought of it was enough to send chills down one’s spine!

“Fortunately, their soul harvesting must follow certain rules, and Lady Carmela’s Contract Magic happens to be a perfect counter to demonic contracts.”

Vasida pressed a hand to her chest, lingering fear evident in her voice. “Otherwise, with so many demons lurking around so many witches, disaster would have struck sooner or later.”

But Mo Lan’s brow only furrowed deeper. Her thoughts kept circling back to the web of relationships the demons had so carefully woven, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that some crucial clue was being overlooked.

Then Lilith’s words struck like a bolt of lightning, cutting through the fog in her mind:

“Wait! Why were there demons lurking around so many witches?”

She immediately pulled up the data and rechecked it.

Sure enough, over the past decade or so, nearly every witch who had left the Wilds and spent extended periods traveling across the Continent of Valen had been shadowed by demons disguised under various identities!

The discovery made her blood run cold.

“Tell me…” Mo Lan’s voice suddenly turned grave. “When you all traveled abroad, did you openly reveal your identities as witches, or did you use disguises like we do?”

“When I was in the Land of Chaos, I was always disguised as a research mage collecting blood samples from magical races. I never ran out of Peak level transformation potions.” Lilith’s eyes suddenly went wide as she spoke. “Wait — if I was still found out even like that…”

One demon finding her might have been coincidence, but three? That was absolutely a premeditated operation.

What made it even more unsettling was that in the decade-plus since Lady Anita’s attack, the witches had all been exceptionally cautious in their activities.

Newly emerged witches from the Wilds would adopt elaborate disguises before beginning their travels. By all reason, it should have been impossible for every single one of them to have their identities exposed.

Mo Lan’s fingers tapped unconsciously against the tabletop as a terrifying hypothesis gradually took shape:

“Unless… demons can see straight through the flesh and gaze directly at the essence of a soul? How else could they lock onto their targets with such precision?”

This hypothesis made the temperature in the room seem to plummet.

If demons truly possessed this ability, then every disguise the witches wore would be utterly meaningless before them.

Every witch who left the Wilds would quickly be marked by demons.

Even more terrifying, it meant that the demons’ hunger for witch souls might be far more obsessive and dangerous than they had ever imagined…

Verifying this hypothesis wouldn’t be difficult — Divination Magic would suffice.

Divining the abilities of the entire demon race would be unlikely to yield results, but divining a few of these specific disguised demons was well within Mo Lan’s capabilities.

Several prophetic visions flashed through her mind, and Mo Lan opened her eyes with a grim expression.

“What did you see?” Lilith asked anxiously.

“There’s a slight deviation, but not far off,” Mo Lan said. “They can smell the scent that souls give off. To them, the more powerful the soul, the more pronounced the fragrance. The purer the soul, the more irresistible the aroma.”

No race had purer souls than witches — no wonder the demons couldn’t leave them alone.