Death... and me

Roan then explained what happened after the expert of the Realm of Gods escaped. "The demon's body lost the capability to maintain stability after receiving injuries from his escapade from the Underworld and the expert from the Realm of Gods. If he wanted to recover, he would need to go back to the Underworld, which you obviously know by now that he wouldn't dare to."

Celis understood what Roan meant. "With that being said, he used the second method available for him, taking high-level souls to recover while staying in the Realm of Mortals."

Roan nodded as he continued where Celis left off. "Exactly. Another point that I found out was that I was right about the type of beings that exist in the Underworld. Back on the other half of the universe, there were only Death Spirits. However, things are different here. From the looks of it, the type of demon this guy was could only absorb demon beast souls. That's why humans would die to his Soul Submission Orbs while demon beasts would be captured and controlled. He had no need for human souls."

Roan continued, "Anyway, after the battle with the expert from the Realm of Gods, he closed the demon beasts' portal as well. After that, he started his plan to capture souls. However, because of his level, even Stage Nine Demon Beast Souls were far enough for him to recover. His only choice was to make up for it with quantity. You could say that he didn't destroy the World Beast Formation completely only because he needed it."

Rean couldn't help but ask after that, "What about that chamber of his? Was that the thing that prevented his body from breaking apart?"

"Yes." Roan nodded in response. "Inside that glass container, he could emulate the environment of the Underworld. Of course, it wasn't real, so it only stopped his body from breaking apart. It didn't have the power to recover it. He needed the souls for that."

"That's when he modified the World Beast Formation to also collect the demon beast souls once they died. The World Beast Formation had no use for souls, only the blood to connect to the Realm of Gods using the demon beasts' method," Rean added.

Things continued normally until the day the demon found out that several Divine Demon Beasts were now present at the same time on the planet. For him, even low-level Divine Demon Beast souls were much more valuable than common demon beast souls. He could have waited longer to gather more souls normally. However, he was overconfident about the power of his Soul Submission Orbs. He thought he could gather enough souls to completely recover from his injuries in a single go.

"The rest of the story you already know," Roan said sometime later. "The jade slips also mention when he gave the Zasfins the methods to gather the souls of the humans to create Bloodline Marks. Of course, you already know that and what happened because of it. There were a few more details, but nothing much that really matters to us."

Celis couldn't help but sigh once Roan was done talking. "In the end, we were just unlucky enough to get involved in all this bullshit."

Roan didn't seem to care, though. "Alright, that's enough for now. You guys also got some materials from his chamber, right? Just consider it your war spoils. Well, we still need to call Malo and the others to tell them about it."

Later that day, Rean and Roan summoned all the important members of the sect. Following that, Rean gave them an explanation regarding the events that happened in the Bestial Sacred Ground. He told them how the Zasfins got the method to create Bloodline Marks, how it brought the slavery of humans and the war against the demon beasts in the past. Simply put, they explained how everyone played on the demon's hands.

Rean also made sure to spread the news through the communication system. That cast some light on the reason humans had become slaves to start with. The part of the Zasfin territories that received Rean's news was shocked to hear about that. Of course, at first, they thought that to be some trick the humans were using to cause problems to the Zasfins.

Unfortunately, it didn't take long before the Soul Rulers' organization used its power to have all their territories hear about the same thing. Obviously, Duran had gone back and explained the entire situation to them as well. Since even the Soul Rulers had backed up the story, it was most likely true. After all, what would be the point in confirming that they were being played by someone else?

The same thing happened in the demon beast territories. Frin told his subordinates to spread the news and that he was the last Stage Nine Demon Beast alive. Nevertheless, they shouldn't worry since the Zasfins only had one last Zasfin at the same level as him. Of course, whether the demon beasts or the Zasfins really only had them as the remaining being at that level was something only the higher-ups of each side knew.

Three weeks after the events in the Bestial Sacred Ground, the Zasfins, humans, and demon beasts met to discuss this issue. As one could expect, the demon beasts blamed the Zasfins for falling for the creature's plans. Then again, the Zasfins were a proud race, so they also pointed out how the demon beasts were unable to stop the being inside their own Sacred Ground.

Surprisingly, the race that suffered the most by becoming enslaved was the one to mediate both sides. "Compared to what we passed through, you guys have nothing to complain about. There's no point in accusing either side since we were all victims of the same schemer. What matters now is how we will deal with this information. First, we have to end this hostility between us. Otherwise, we would still be playing in that creature's hand even after it's gone. Not to mention that it might be dead already after what we saw."

Both demon beasts and Zasfins narrowed their eyes. Neither side liked the idea of being controlled, let alone by something that was probably already dead. Thus, the words from the human side had some weight. Sevinia, the leader of the Soul Rulers organization, was the first one to step forward. "Very well, we're willing to have a talk."

Frin, as the 'only' Stage Nine Demon Beast remained, did the same. "The same goes for us."

Last but not least, Fizer took place as the representative of the humans. After all, he was still the strongest human in the world with his Elemental Transformation Realm cultivation. "Our human race is currently the smallest and weakest out of all of us, so it won't make much of a difference at the moment. Nevertheless, we obviously want to take part in it."