Oliver sneered at the demons around him, dragging one with hairlike tentacles on its head—some sort of a gray floating octopus demon. The jeers and constant spits of venomous saliva at his feet drove him to his limits.

  “Láta hjarta!” the demons around him spat as he turned to the painted mosaic to his side and clawed at it before vanishing from the training room, dragging alongside him the octopus-like demon.

  Appearing within his private room, Oliver hurled the demon across it, releasing a snarl before turning around and smashing his fist against the wall.

  , Oliver seethed, his mind going back to that night he cowered in fear from Archie.

  When he arrived within Lilith’s room, she immediately dismissed him before attempting to seduce the man that reduced him to…this husk of what he was.

  He barely heard more than her demanding Archie to become hers before he vanished and was sent into some type of liquid, egg-shaped pod where almost all of his injuries mended themselves.

  Almost all…

  His heart, his Demonic Heart one, was destroyed by Archie from his final attack and hadn’t regenerated back. The same heart that allowed him to warp and bend mana to his will was now gone.

  He was ripped out from his egg-like pod without warning and tossed onto the cold and slimy ground. As his body sprawled across the floor, naked, disoriented, and slick with mucus, the familiar presence of mana—the energy that he constantly surrounded himself with—was nowhere to be found.

  Shaking off the shock, he pushed himself up and approached the demon that had ripped him out of his pod, and as he attempted to grab onto the demon's arms, a snarl cut through the air.

  Not a moment later, a powerful slap sent him crashing back down, pain flaring in his jaw. Laughter followed from the demons standing around him, staring at him prone on the ground.

  His face flushed red.

  Swallowing his pride, he forced himself up and made his way to the front desk, where the healers stood, asking why he couldn’t feel the mana around him anymore. A quick Identify revealed their nature—Hymn Reapers, floating skeletal figures draped in tattered cloaks.

  The ones who even bothered to acknowledge him didn't hide their contempt. With sneers and scoffs, they threw a single statement at him like a death sentence: his Demonic Heart was destroyed.

  He froze.

  A flash—so fast he barely registered it—struck his forehead.

  Then, pain.

  It wasn’t just a headache. It wasn’t something he could grit his teeth and push through. It was agony, searing and absolute, forcing him to his knees as his mind drowned in an avalanche of Demonkin biology.

  The information burned into his brain unstoppably, leaving him with no choice but to absorb it and endure the pain that came with it.

  Seconds stretched into minutes, then into hours. He remained frozen, still naked, trembling as the pain finally dulled enough for him to move again.

  His hand drifted to his chest—to where his demonic heart should have been- and found its calming thumps painfully absent.

  A deep, hollow sensation spread through him. The connection to mana, once an inseparable part of him, was nearly gone, leaving him with a connection that sent him back to what he felt when he was still a human.

  Cambions relied on two vital organs, popularly denoted as hearts, based on their importance despite looking nothing like them.

  The Physique Heart is responsible for sustaining and enhancing their physical form. Strength, speed, endurance—everything tied to the physical body. And the Demonic Heart held the true power of demon kind, the true core of their demonic pride, magic. It strengthened their bond with mana and amplified their abilities, and while without it, they could live, but… they were considered to be nothing more than a husk.

  And now, he was just that, a husk.

  No amount of natural regeneration could restore it. Only rare resources and powerful Healers and Regenerators could do so, but he had neither. The only exception that was given to all was their Racial Evolution. As with every Racial Evolution, you become cured of all physical ailments and blemishes that you wish to straighten out.

  His D-Grade Racial Evolution was still far out of reach, with him at level 68.

  But by that time, if he was still without a Demonic Heart to bolster and refine his mana control, he was sure that Evolutionary Options would be far worse than what they should be.

  Lilith refused to answer his ritual communications, and when he tried to learn where she was staying, the demons spat on him before beating him unconscious, leaving him alive for reasons he did not know.

  Oliver grabbed the unconscious octopus-like demon and dragged him off the ground, where he crashed into his bed desk stand and headed past a doorway and towards his alchemy room.

  Walking past the various murals of the many Demon gods and goddesses, not giving them the heed he’d seen countless other demons do, even going so far as to bow whilst on their knees.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  It was disgusting.

  He’d only accepted Lilith’s offer because he found it to be beneficial, and now he regretted it.

  The Demonic Heart was amazing when he had it, bolstering his mana capacity and control. But with it gone, he was back to his previous reserves and with far worse control over mana.

  Not to mention Lilith’s absence.

  He no longer received little tidbits of advice on his alchemy nor biweekly meetings within her domain. The transmission ritual seal he’d set up, the same one he’d made in his Group Tutorial, refused to activate, even though he’d set it up perfectly.

  It was aggravating, to say the least.

  He’d even debated whether or not to forsake her Blessing, but the benefits he gained from it outweighed the negatives. Besides, it might have been the reason as towhy no one had killed him yet…definitely the reason.

  After all, she was one of the many Demon goddesses that had their image displayed on the murals.

  Walking past the room full of murals, he entered his alchemy room.

  Tables that touched the walls were filled with various vials and cauldrons, each simmering and boiling various colored liquids. Desks either empty or holding up the dissected corpses of various demons that he’d killed during the mandatory, every three hour ‘sparring match’.

  Shelves along the walls were half-full, marked with various labels denoting the ingredients by rarity; from Commons to Epics, the highest he’d managed to forge from his sector’s botanical garden when he managed to prove to the overseer that he wasn’t just wasting his labor.

  And finally, the large inferno in the front of his alchemy room. Aka, his corpse disposer.

  He really wasn’t sure why it was in his alchemy room, considering how alchemy needed to be done with his alchemical flame, and went off on the assumption that it was just for décor.

  Lifting the demon atop one of the cleared desks, he moved to another table, grabbing a scalpel and cleaning both himself and the scalpel from stained blood. Pushing aside stray tentacles and wiping off the perspiration off the demon’s chest, he started to methodically carve through the demon’s body.

  He wasn’t sure why he wasn’t being apprehended or punished for killing the people he’d beaten in the training center. He’d seen no others doing the same when they’d beat their own opponents, instead finding them chatting and laughing with one another after one helped the other up.

  But after hours of losing in the training center from the phantom strings he attempted to control with his poor mana control, his anger and embarrassment reached its peak when his opponent had him pinned and was openly mocking him to his face. Everything became a blur, and when he came to, he found himself atop of the demon, covered in claw marks, and his claws firmly lodged in its throat.

  But no one batted an eye at that demon’s death, nor the others he killed in the center. Even when he lost a fight, his opponent would leave him barely able to breathe before leaving the arena.

  He was the exception, something that he was more than willing to capitalize on.

  The Physique Heart’s bottom right side had been ruptured by countless needle-like projectiles—an automatic defense triggered the moment he accidentally nicked a millimeter off an extra vein, just beneath the one he had meant to cut. The damage rendered the heart useless and killed the octopus demon on the spot.

  Clicking his snake-like tongue in mild frustration, Oliver set down his scalpel and dismissed the mana strings that had been holding back stray bits of flesh and bone, ensuring a clear view of the demon’s organs throughout the procedure.

  With practiced care, he placed the Demonic Heart onto a prepared sheet, carefully moving it to another desk. Retrieving an enchanted piece of glass, he held it up beside his non-bruised eye, ready to examine his latest failure.

  He proceeded to spend countless hours feeding the Demonic Heart his mana via a constant flow of his mana, training it to adapt to his own mana flow.

  He ignored the first ding he received on his communicator, thinking it to be another ad of an incubus or succubus trying to rope him into an ‘alchemical experiment’ they could do together.

  “Never again,” Oliver muttered, flaring his slitted nostrils. The one time he agreed to do so in hopes of finding someone from whom he could extract information, all he received in return was the knowledge that having intercourse provided him with a singular racial level. But afterwards it seemingly went on some sort of abstract cooldown.

  But after a sudden barrage of dings that erupted from his communicator, he kept a singular hand focused on fueling the Demonic Heart with his mana and the other scrolling through his communicator, seeing what caused the commotion.

  As he read the message glowing in neon red, a fang-filled smile spread across his scaled face.

  A tournament.

  A competition between everyone in his training center—one where the first-place winner would earn the right to request anything from the training center head, a B-Grade. And whatever they asked for within her abilities… would be granted.

  His claws flexed in anticipation, crushing the communicator.

  This was his chance.

  Archie sat at the end of one of the tunnels that led into the jungle with the Totem of Spring’s Ascent and the Spirit Nucleus beside him, overlooking the jungle with Daniel. Daniel was currently meditating in front of their campfire, trying to take in as much nature mana as he could to evolve his Beginner’s Meditation skill to Nature’s Meditation

  He was giving him tips throughout the whole process too, payment for him teaching him the basics to learn plant manipulation, aka the BotanokinesisFloral Manipulation

  Floral ManipulationBotanokinesis

  The more Archie listened and practiced with Daniel, the more melancholic he became. He was a genuinely great guy to be around, cracking dad jokes every now and again, talking about his life on the farms he owned before the integration, and so on.

  He missed his own grandpa.

  Just as he was about to get up and pull Daniel from his meditation, a system alert produced a loud ding that startled the both of them.

  Quest: Group Tutorial Final-Boss

  You have survived the Hoarfrost Highlands, bested its king, and have moved on to conquer the Emernigan Isle. Having killed the inhabitants of Emernigan Isle and their Queen, the Verdant Serpent, the King of the Emernigan Isle has been unleashed and greatly empowered. He is now actively searching to eliminate you all, starting with the killer of his mate. Your reward will be scaled based on your performance.

  Requirements:

  Reward:

  Note: This quest cannot be declined.

  “You mind looking after the egg?” Archie asked Daniel, who looked at him with ‘are you really asking me this?’ look on his face before giving him a dismissive wave.

  “Go have your fun,” Daniel chuckled before scootching closer to the Spirit Nucleus. “I’ll keep an eye on the little one. Maybe it’ll hatch while you’re away and think me to be its mother.”

  Archie gave him a chuckle, moving the Totem of Spring’s Ascent and the Spirit Nucleus closer to Daniel before sprinting towards the Pyre of Challenge with a wide smile on his face.

  He had a boss to kill.

  Thanks for Reading!

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