Chapter 407: Broken Contract

“…It turns out that demons can really evolve.

With blood still flowing down her face, Ligeia murmured in surprise: “I thought it was just a legend.”

“It is indeed similar to the legend.”

Jannis sighed: “Even I have never seen a demon complete evolution in my life, let alone you.”

Theoretically, demons can undoubtedly evolve. After all, the power system of the Sin Mark is here, and keeping the form unchanged is bound to be inconsistent with the nature of change beyond the Tao.

“Because the evolution of demons often accumulates a lot of Tao power, it needs to devour a lot of souls and accumulate extremely long years.”

Evans heard the discussion between the two, and while healing himself, he answered: “If the time span is set to 500 years, then demons that have independently completed evolution still exist. "

After all, in this world, even if it is just a mortal soul, it is quite dangerous to harvest it.

Because according to the rules of this world, after all lives with souls disappear, the souls will enter the dream world and be thrown into one of the nine rivers in the dream world according to their strongest adaptability.

After being screened by the Nine Pillars and the Heavenly Officials, the souls that no gods want will be reintegrated into the world and become the material for the souls of newborns of various races. The soul will gradually grow stronger as the personality matures and the intellect increases. After an old man dies, he can become nine babies. In this way, there will be more and more living beings in this world.

In other words, any soul in this world will be born again. Every soul is on the account. It cannot be used at will.

Creating an apostle requires sharing a part of one's own power, and the nine rivers need to be infused with souls, otherwise it may cause the world to tilt - if there is a path that has not returned the souls of this path to the world for a long time, then the proportion of souls of this path mixed in the souls of newborns will undoubtedly become less and less.

Then the influence of this path in the material world will decrease. The celestial officials who tend to other paths will have an opportunity to take advantage of it.

From this perspective, the souls handed over to the world can also be regarded as a kind of "tax". After paying enough taxes, the rest is yours, and the taxes paid are used by everyone.

- Yes, in this world Even the high and mighty gods have to pay taxes. ơɱ

Many wars in the dream world have occurred between pillar gods, between pillar gods and heavenly officials, and between heavenly officials. The direct cause of these wars is often the problem of soul distribution.

It is possible that the person that the candlestick has chosen to be an apostle is poached by a heavenly official from another path before he dies; it is also possible that the soul that was originally about to enter the blood realm is secretly branded with a great sin and turned into a demon.

Even if a soul is directly destroyed, it is equivalent to the soul returning directly to the world, and not many gods will be dissatisfied. At most, the pillar god or heavenly official who reserved the soul in advance will be angry about it.

But if it is stolen A soul, especially one favored by a pillar god or a heavenly official, is undoubtedly a very serious sin.

——It seems to be just stealing a soul, but in fact it is equivalent to killing an apostle in advance and stealing a soul that may originally belong to other paths to the transcendent path.

This is an "unbalanced" act.

Therefore, only when the terms of the contract are met-that is, the other party has determined in advance to "hand over the soul" and actively accepted the transaction, the responsibility will be transferred to the party who signed the contract.

"Other paths of phantom demons are easy to say, but the demons of the transcendent path must have a strong desire to rise, but they themselves have no flesh and blood, they are just phantom demons living in the dream world. Therefore, they cannot become stronger through the power of the path itself like creatures in the material world.

"So, demons can only obtain those extremely valuable souls by signing contracts. The transcendent power emitted by the host can slowly enhance the power of demons; demons can also find a way to complete the contract and directly eat the soul to obtain a large amount of transcendent power."

Evans made a simple analogy: "It's like eating eggs and eating the hen that laid the eggs. Although the latter doesn't seem to be very cost-effective, if there are other hens who are not afraid of death and dare to take over, it is not impossible to backstab and then switch jobs."

For this reason, few demons can gather enough power to complete evolution. At least four or five hundred years of activeness in the material world are needed to have the opportunity to accumulate enough power to support evolution-and the whole process cannot be completely dead, otherwise it will be reborn as a phantom egg again, and the power will naturally be counted from the beginning.

Evans' impression is that there are not many demons who have clearly completed evolution.

For example, the giant prince's brother, the eye demon-it got a little power during the Tail Ring Ceremony and evolved into the Eye Demon Lord.

This is one of the evolutionary directions, and it is also the simplest evolutionary direction.

Aiwass's Shadow Fiend can also evolve directly into Shadow Fiend Lord. This is just to strengthen his own template without changing the skill set and form, which is equivalent to obtaining a comprehensive enhancement on the original basis. The race remains unchanged, but the elite monster becomes a lord monster. But this is still not considered a high-level phantom demon.

In addition, the Shadow Fiend with the "Rage" mark has another real evolutionary direction.

That is to become a "Flame Demon" of a high-level phantom demon.

The Flame Demon also belongs to the system of the Rage Mark, and is a high-level phantom demon, very powerful.

Balrog is also the only demon among demons that has mastered the power of the path of devotion - Balrog can create a large number of familiars by devouring souls and splitting itself infinitely. It can also be forged to create "demons" equivalent to the deep purple "holy object" level. equipment".

This is roughly equivalent to a low-end version of Fallen Heavenly Division - instead of turning people into demons, it turns people into familiars; at the same time, Balrog can also give others power... Although it is given through equipment, the equipment must also It can be considered part of the power.

——A gun doesn’t count as a combat weapon?

Let alone having a combat power of 5 with a gun, you can't even reach a combat power of 5 without a gun!

But there is no doubt that if Aiwass's shadow demon becomes the Balrog, then Aiwass will not be able to sign a contract with her as a beast of sin. Because the Butterfly of Flame Paralysis is also a fire attribute, it overlaps with the Balrog.

And there's another problem.

That means Balrog is ugly.

Some players may think it's majestic, but Aiwass just thinks it's ugly.

The form of the Balrog is that of a scorching monster made of flames, magma, and red-hot metal. It looks like a giant with a strong physique... Not to mention being unable to contact Aiwass, even just by showing up, the high temperature that can easily melt the earth will make the surrounding creatures unbearable.

And if Shadow Demon really turns into Balrog, it means that all the power she accumulated on the path of love will be nullified. She can still use some of the power of shadow, but not too much - after all, she still needs to accumulate a lot of deflections on the path of devotion before she can complete the evolution.

But Night Stalker is different.

The Night Demon is a demon with the mark of jealousy, and her counterpart is the Mirror Demon. The essence of jealousy is comparison and imitation, and imitation is the essence of ritual. Therefore, the Mirror Demon is a demon that purely transcends the path, and it is quite difficult to evolve into a Night Demon across the path.

But it just so happened that Shadow Demon's brand of rage turned into a mark of jealousy. If she evolved from Shadow Demon's jump mark to Night Demon, she would be able to retain a considerable part of Shadow Demon's power and at the same time obtain a new template for Night Demon.

——The sixth-level high-level phantom!

In terms of strength alone, it is already as powerful as the final BOSS of the current version.

"Brother," Yulia frowned slightly, "You were too dangerous just now..."

She didn't want to blame Aiwass, nor did she want to reflect on what had been successful. But it really scared her to tears just now.

What if Aiwass does this again?

What if the demon betrays him next time?

——That’s the devil! A demon with a traitorous nature!

"Don't worry, I will only raise one demon in Vines, and there will be no others... The others will also be phantom demons from other paths, and they will not be dangerous demons."

Aiwas comforted: "I know Vignes very well, she will never betray me. And the transcendent desire that Vignes gets from me is more mellow than the soul of the vulgar. It is like the taste of an egg. Nutrition and deliciousness have surpassed hens..."

…So she won’t harm me, so don’t worry.

Aiwass wanted to make a joke to make Yulia relax.

But looking at her red eyes and the eyes staring at him silently, Aiwass still shrank his neck and did not dare to say these words.

——Aiwass’ intuition told him that Yulia might explode after saying this.

So Yanis quickly changed the topic: "I remember that if a demon devours other people's souls, it may be discovered and punished by the agent of the hourglass."

"Well," Aiwass nodded and immediately answered, "Although Sand Time is a bit nosy...but he is indeed the pillar god who cares most about maintaining the balance between the two worlds.

"Restricting the Pillar God and Tiansi from coming to the material world and blocking the upper limit of the world level to protect the material world are all due to the sand timepiece; and the fragments of Tiansi fell into the material world and increased the power concentration of the corresponding path. After that, He will work hard to raise the upper limit of the corresponding world level to restore balance between the two worlds.

"Without Sand Clock, the Lord of Balance, the world would be doomed——"

This is speaking from the heart.

Think about it, the Nine Pillar Gods and the Heavenly Lords can walk around the world as they please without any restrictions, and can initiate world-scale wars at every turn... Aiwass couldn't even imagine how chaotic the scene would be.

...Of course, Sand Clock is also the most troubled Pillar God.

When the contract with the phantoms summoned from the dream world expires, He will prevent these phantoms from staying in the material world; if someone steals souls in the material world, He will also send an agent to deal with it; if the war in the material world lasts too long and the people are in dire straits, He will He will also be responsible for intervening and mediating; if there are wild high-level phantoms in the material world that are too powerful, He will also take action to send them back to the dream world...

When the Ring of Ending Ceremony begins, Sand Clock will become the busiest Pillar God.

When players challenge Tiansi, they will receive targeted blessings from Sand Clock and use this as a countermeasure - this is the normal mode.

And if the player chooses not to accept the blessing of Sand Timepiece, he can forcefully challenge Tiansi and pass the level to obtain another difficult achievement. This is considered difficult.

In terms of the settings of the game "The Linking Ring", card draw guarantees, crit probability pseudo-randomness, backpack detection, difficulty balance...these are only designs at the game level, and they also belong to the field of sand timepieces. At least that's what the officials say.

……Um?

When Aiwass thought of this, his face suddenly changed and he covered his chest. The Night Demon, who had transformed into a crow, suddenly changed back.

"... Wait?"

He felt something in his heart cracking.

——That was the contract he signed with the Shadow Demon on the night when Aiwass awakened his past life memories.