Chapter 632 – Villains, Every Last One

The way demons were born also determined their society and ideology.

Demon society had strict hierarchies—higher-ranked demons held absolute control over lower-ranked ones.

This hierarchy was simultaneously one of bloodline and one of power.

A demon’s bloodline rank and their strength rank were essentially one and the same.

For other races with magical bloodlines, bloodline only determined innate magical talent, while ultimate strength depended on training and magical study.

Bloodlines generally couldn’t be elevated either—only by journeying to the Well of the Sky could one find ways to alter or enhance their magical bloodline and magical talent.

But demon bloodlines could evolve through the devouring of souls.

So demons advanced through bloodline evolution, not through increases in magical energy or magical rank.

Previously, everyone had assumed that aside from the universal abilities of dark magic and soul harvesting, individual demons also possessed distinct differential abilities—such as the incubus’s charm specialized against females, or the succubi’s charm specialized against males.

But in reality, dark magic and soul harvesting were the most fundamental bloodline abilities of all demons. Every demon possessed them regardless of bloodline rank; only the intensity differed.

Those differential abilities were actually new powers awakened after bloodline advancement.

The lower a demon’s bloodline rank, the easier they were to birth.

Representatives of low-ranked demons—lesser demons and imps—were born in batches.

Mid-ranked demons like succubi, incubi, and flame demons were born far less frequently. Out of tens of thousands of low-ranked demons, perhaps only a single naturally-born mid-ranked demon would appear.

Demons born naturally at high rank were rarer still.

As for lord-level demons, since the Abyss had become part of the world of Valen, only one had ever been naturally born.

Demons of even higher ranks had never appeared at all.

However, regardless of what rank a demon was born at, as long as it could devour enough souls, even the lowest imp could potentially evolve into a lord-level demon or something even more formidable.

Being condensed manifestations of malice, wicked desire, and fallen souls, demons would naturally do anything for the sake of their own advancement.

All beings with souls—whether of their own kind or other races—were nothing more than targets for soul harvesting in a demon’s eyes.

Souls of their own kind, brimming with malice and wicked desire, were actually easier to harvest. They could simply be killed and devoured directly.

Foreign souls, on the other hand, typically contained much goodwill and love—things as repulsive to demons as holy light—and couldn’t be harvested through killing alone.

Either the target had to be led into darkness first, or they had to be tricked into signing a contract selling their soul, before normal consumption was possible.

The law of the jungle was etched into every demon’s bones.

Even creatures as weak as lesser demons and imps began ceaselessly killing and collecting souls from the moment they were born, accumulating toward advancement.

However, for demons, killing a demon of equal rank was far more difficult than killing members of other races.

After all, when demons of equivalent bloodline rank fought each other, all their abilities were at roughly the same level, and most battles ended in mutual destruction.

Killing demons of lower bloodline rank was easy enough, but the souls harvested were too weak to contribute much toward advancement. As for demons of higher bloodline rank—upon sighting one, the only option was to flee. If caught, a demon would either be enslaved as a servant to harvest souls on the captor’s behalf, or killed outright.

Furthermore, a demon’s advancement path was determined by the attributes of malice and wicked desire within the souls consumed during evolution. Demon souls had obvious tendencies in their malice and desires, and consuming too many of them locked in the evolutionary path.

Only souls filled with goodwill and benevolent desire allowed free choice in the direction of advancement after consumption.

Moreover, a demon’s lifespan also depended on soul energy. Their natural lifespans were very short, and they had to constantly consume souls just to continue surviving.

For demons, an ordinary person’s soul was of higher quality than a low-ranked demon’s soul. A low-ranked spellcaster’s soul surpassed a mid-ranked demon’s soul in quality. A mid-ranked spellcaster’s soul surpassed even a high-ranked demon’s.

Souls rich in goodwill were of higher quality than souls heavy with malice.

Even a mere ordinary person’s soul was far weightier than that of a low-ranked demon.

And ordinary people were no match for low-ranked demons in a fight.

Dealing with members of other races was far easier than dealing with fellow demons, yet the rewards were far greater—which was why demons always had such an intense fondness for the souls of races beyond the Abyss.

Take this incubus, for example. He had originally been a lowly imp, but during his advancement, he had devoured too many souls steeped in lust. When evolving to mid-rank, his only options were to become a incubus or a succubus.

He had chosen to become a incubus purely because he’d heard that the surface world had more delicious female souls.

He wasn’t particularly satisfied with this evolutionary direction, though.

Advancement along the path of lust required sacrificing physical durability to maintain a certain degree of “aesthetic appeal.”

incubi and succubi alike could only fight by manipulating desire, dreams, charm, or mental corruption.

The moment an enemy resisted the charm, he was essentially a fish on a cutting board.

And since he was already a incubus—and demons had no capacity for reproduction—his ability to manipulate desire was basically useless against other demons.

One could say the only opponents he could defeat were succubi with similar abilities and other incubi.

If he stayed in the Abyss, there would be absolutely no possibility of shifting to a different evolutionary path.

He truly didn’t want to continue evolving along the lust path, so immediately after advancing, he came to the surface world to seek the souls of other races.

This way, his advancement choices would be broader, giving him a chance to transition into his dream form—an Abyssal Knight.

Other demons who came to the surface world were either in similar situations to his, or were servants of high-ranked demons, working on their masters’ behalf.

These demons were essentially all mid-ranked, with some bringing low-ranked demon enforcers along.

A mid-ranked demon’s strength fell roughly between that of an Advanced spellcaster and a Peak level spellcaster.

High-ranked demons possessed abilities that basically surpassed the Peak level. They were restricted on the Continent of Valen, so most chose to pass through the Well of the Sky to harvest souls in other worlds, at most enslaving some mid-ranked demons to work for them.

After truly understanding the full picture of demonkind, Mo Lan felt that her decision to mobilize every member of the Dawn Society to hunt demons had been absolutely correct.

Other races at least had individual variation—some people were kind, others were wicked. Witches were even universally friendly. Only demons were the very embodiment of evil—villains to the last, without any possibility of redemption.

To all beings with souls, demons were enemies through and through—a relationship of kill or be killed.

One fewer demon in the world meant one more layer of protection for everyone’s souls.