Sovereign of the Karmic System

"What do you mean?"

"You are all asking yourself how I was able to approach the stone.. But if any of you possessed enough comprehension of space and darkness, that would be quite obvious. This barrier is all but unbreakable, and how the attacks of the other demon lords have demonstrated, with enough power it is possible to break through it, and take control over the stone." Explained Daniel while petting the cub’s head, and placing a dark essence sphere in between his paws to munch on every now and then.

He then turned to look back at the historical keeper, and while pointing his finger at the cub’s head, he added, "The stone’s power turned into dark essence to attack, because that is the only type of power he knows.. What is truly needed to control it, however, I am guessing is demonic power."

What Daniel said made complete sense, after all, if this stone was truly hell’s core, it must have had something to do with the unnaturally fast evolution of hell’s inhabitants into demons.

The implication of this line of thought were devastating for this group of demon lords. After all, if what Daniel said was true, it would mean that the demonic race was not really a race, but a species born out of the powers of a single individual. In the end, they would not be much different than the monsters created by the members of the parasite faction.

While these demon lords were buried into their own thoughts, Daniel opened a small portal that lead into his pocket dimension. Behind it was Sewah, who immediately walked out as soon as the portal opened.

"Is it over?" Asked Sewah while looking at the few remaining demon lords, and at the weak humans he was not expecting to see.

Daniel nodded in confirmation, then said "I have a method to turn you into a human. You might maintain a portion of the power of this body, but probably not all of it. To live in a powerful body that does not belong to you, or make it your own.. Make your choice."

After listening to Daniel’s proposition, Sewah fell deeply into consideration. He had already accepted to try and live as a normal cultivator, and while he still had problems with his nature, he was learning the importance of the small daily victories, from which normal cultivators were able to gain the little happiness they needed to live with no regrets.

The body of the oni leader was powerful, but it was not his. His innate power was not of his taste, and in no way did he wish to see it grow to a higher stage. Also, he did not quite like its appearance.. So in the end, he steeled his mind, and accepted Daniel’s proposition.

Once again, Daniel put the cub over the stone, and while showing him a few dark essence stones as incentives, he said "Do not take the culivation.. Just the demonic essence." The cub was still not intelligent enough to understand the meaning of Daniel’s words, so when talking to him, Daniel had been forced to push his intention into his mind. Thankfully, the cub caught on quickly, causing for a portion of the stone’s unique essence to move towards Sewah, and absorb every bit of demonic power inside him.

Sewah’s body began to shrink, his small horns moved back into his forehead, and his red skin was losing color, and going back to a paler shade of skin color.

When the entire process ended, Daniel looked at Sewah with shock. His appearance was identical to that of his wisp of consciousness. Naturally, Daniel was not sure of how this could have happened, but the explanation was quite simple. These demons had never had a human form, and therefore, the appearance they had taken was based on what they would have expected to look like as humans, in their minds.

The appearance taken by these demons, was therefore identical to the one they would turn into when using their basic skill of shapeshifting.

The moment Sewah became human, Daniel probed into him with his immortal cultivation, and quickly found out that his spirit and body hadn’t separated. At the same time, his power had dropped from the seventieth phase of the high demonic cultivation, down to the peak of the tenth stage of immortal cultivation, right at the gates of the realm of high humans.

The loss in power would be jaw dropping for everybody else, but not for Sewah, who had a big smile on his face.

"What do you think?" Asked Daniel with curiosity.

While touching his body, Sewah turned to look at Daniel, and said with enthusiasm "I remember this feeling.. So much potential.. I like it." His voice was identical to the one Daniel would always hear when Sewah would talk to him from within his mind.

Satisfied by the result, Daniel opened another portal in space. Behind it, stood Aeron and Xargy. No other demon of the Church of Damnation was around them, only a large number of human corpses.

As soon as the two noticed the portal, they walked through it, and approached Daniel.

"Took you long enough.. The people from the Church of Damnation suddenly turned into humans.. You should have seen them! HA!" Said Xargy while showing a set of teeth dirtied with blood.

Aeron, on the other hand, looked at Daniel with curiosity for a few moments, then asked, "Your consciousness.. Why can’t I locate it?"

Daniel couldn’t help but snort at the comments of the two, and after picking up the wolf cub, he said, "A ’hi’ and ’thank you’ would not have hurt you.. Come on, let’s get out of this place." The last few words were enough to catch the attention of the old demon, and the lupa, who looked at him as if he was going to steal a child from a nursery room.. And in fact, he was.

"Where do you think you are going? Leave the cub here." Said the old demon with a threatening tone.

"I can’t leave him here. He is hell’s ruler now, I won’t allow you or anyone else to try and use him to rule this place." Said Daniel after shaking his head. He was close to the stone when he cub had used is power, and he had felt a change in it. The power of the stone had become his, and only he was able to use it, or at least, until the day he would die.

"I cannot allow to take him. He is my companion’s son!" Said the demon lord while showing off his impressive demonic power. However, his anger was eased by what Daniel said next..

"If I leave him here, you won’t be able to help him grow to a point where he will be able to defend himself. Someone will end up trying to use him, or kill him to take his place." He said in an attempt to reason with the old demon, while trying to push his intentions to the Lupa. He then added, "This will assure all of you that no one will ever be able to take over hell again.. I will make him happy, and I will allow you to come and visit often.. But he can’t stay here."

"This is ridiculous! You have no right to take this decision, you are not even from hell!" Shouted one of the other demon lords.

A second Demon Lord followed suit, and added, "We will handle our business by ourselves!"

Being backed by his peers, the leader of the beastmaster faction felt slightly more comfortable with pushing on this topic. He had seen that cub be born, and he had no intention of seeing him being separated from his mother so soon. Of his newly acquired power, he did not care.

However, before the demon lord could say something, the large white wolf walked in front of him, pushing her head against his stomach, almost as if in an attempt to stop his words from coming out.

Daniel looked at the lupa with the highest amount of respect he could feel for anyone. It was not easy to give a child up, even if for his own safety.

After receiving the consent of the Lupa to take her son away, Daniel pulled his small planet out of his spatial ring, and used his comprehension of spatial essence and the cub’s power to form a gate right next to the stone of hell’s core. This gate would connect his planet to hell, and work as a fixed passage between the closed dimension, and the moving planet. If someone within hell wanted to reach Daniel’s planet, he would require Daniel’s permission, or they would be bounced riht back.

As he was preparing to leave, Daniel remembered something important. He turned towards Lady Night, and said "You are coming too."

The beautiful woman turned to look at Daniel with surprise for just a few moments, then understood. She knew what Daniel’s power was, and therefore, he had to keep an eye on her.

"I understand.." She said before walking in the directionof Daniel’s group.

Once all together, Daniel opened a portal that led to the gate of hell. There stood the two massive doors, completely opened. At their feet lay the corpses of a young looking man and three demonic hounds, who appeared to have been killed instantly, and painlessly.

As Daniel walked towards the massive door, the rest of the group followed.

The Lupa, who had remained quiet until now and was looking at her child leave, lifted her head, and let out a harrowing howl. *AWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO* This howl traveled through the entirety of hell, reaching every member of the demonic wolf family, who joined in, and howled with as much sadness as she did.

During this ritual, Aeron could not help but to let two tears fall from the corner of his eyes. This specific type of pain, that of a mother forced to let go of her child, was amongst the worst feelings that someone could ever feel.

Before leaving, Daniel turned to look back at the demon lord, and through sound essence, he said, "I will soon get my company back. When that happens, I’ll offer you essence spheres for the same price people pay them for outside."

This message was able to cheer the old demon up. The high prices of the essence spheres were the reason why his faction had been having problems grooming the spiritual wolves of mana, and now that he had been promised a stream at a fair price, he couldn’t help but feel a little better. Also, he was happy to know that the wolf cub would have enough resources for his future, and that Daniel wasn’t simply picking off of his savings.

After receiving a quiet nod from the demon lord, Daniel turned back towards the massive opened gates, and began the walk towards the other side of the long staircase.

For some reason, it was impossible to teleport away while in the staircase, so the group was forced to keep the pace of the slowest member of the group, Lady Night, which was now at the stage that preceeded immortality.

When the six of them reached the end of the staircase, they found themselves in an unknown world that was within the territory of one of the factions of hell. That was the place where the human faction leaders had entered hell from, and standing outside, were a few cultivators at the high human stage in wait for their leaders to come back.

From hell, no one was supposed to come out. It was made extremely clear that if a cultivator that did not belong to the factions present, they would have to either kill them, or if unable to, they would have to send a report to the universal government, saying that something had probably gone wrong, and suggesting to attack hell.

Unfortunately for these individuals at various stages of high immortality, Daniel did not exude his full power, while the others felt only like immortal cultivators like Aeron and Sewah, normal cultivators like the wolf cub and Lady Night, and a single high dragon in its human form. To their eyes, Xargy was the only possible menace.

"Four humans, a dragon of the royal family, and a demonic beasts..How odd. What were your business in hell, and how did you come out?" Asked one of the high humans, while threatingly showing his cultivation at the fiftieth stage of high immortality.

However, Daniel did not bother to respond, and waved his hand instead, causing for this man to fall on the ground face first. From the side of his face, small clouds of dust be seen being rhythmically blown away, showing that the man was sleeping soundly.

"Just passing by."