Rise of the Cosmic_Emperor

The Formation was very impressive and the manner in which it had been etched into the foundation was incredible.

From what Hal could tell, which was a lot since he had mapped out the formation by moving his Astral perception all about it, the formation was all over to territory.

Hal stood back up and closed his eyes as he quickly reveled in the feeling of negative energy in the air, and then he said to Sassy,

"Let's go"

Hal wearing a mask was not attention-grabbing to the denizens of the territory and he was actually mostly ignored... An expert who did not wish to show his face was not too much of a surprising occurrence.

Anyway, Hal and Sassy were on their way to the grandest building the Devil Tribe, the building belonging to the head of the tribe and situated on a massive estate.

He had spent six days traveling by Teleportation circles and he did not wish to waste any more time with miscellaneous matters...

He needed an audience with the Tribal chief.

He boarded a commercial carriage and with quick persuasion, he got the driver to travel at maximum speed towards the Tribal Chief's estate.

The journey began and ended fast but Hal still had enough time to think.

Practically every cultivator in the Devil tribe territory cultivated like a member of the Devil Tribe and had the aura of the pseudo-Devils that they were.

Sure, certain demonic beast races were normal cultivators or partial practitioners in Devil arts but the majority of them were pseudo-Devils which was to be expected.

It got Hal thinking about what set the Devil tribe apart from the other races in the Dystopian Continent and the information was available to him in barely a second on account of his Codex.

The other three main powers in the Dystopian continent had a pedigree that went further back than the founding of the Devil tribe...

The Devil Tribe was founded by human slaves in service of one of the old Dystopian races who were put through terrible treatment mostly because they were humans.

They suffered due to the hatred between both clans... Used in all manner of ways.

One day, a slave claimed he had had a vision and in that vision, he was blessed by a Devil queen who chose him as her Avatar.

The slave, by the name of Errdo, was given a sliver of Devil energy that he was ordered by this Devil queen to cultivate, and along with that Devil energy, he was also taught Devil spells.

Errdo lay in wait for his opportunity and while waiting, he gathered followers.

Cultivating the Devil energy as he had been instructed caused an increase in the sliver he had been granted and it was soon enough to set him apart but even then he remained quiet until he synthesized the increased amount of Devil's energy with his blood to give rise to a Pseudo-Devil Bloodline.

The fact that he had the knowledge to do all these things further supported his claim that he had indeed had an encounter with a Devil queen.

Anyway, with his pseudo-Devil bloodline, Errdo finally began a rebellion with his followers whom he had also granted slivers of Devil energy which they all cultivated to similar degrees as Errdo. Except they did not have Pseudo-Devil bloodlines.

Errdo and his supporters battled against their previous owners and their main arsenal was using Devil energy to cast Devil spells.

The first battle was for independence as Errdo and his supporters freed every slave their owners used had and retreated away with all these slaves to a little corner in the territory where they continued to grow while training the newly freed slaves.

There were many battles after that with the slave owners wishing to enact revenge on the slaves who had the audacity to rebel and kill quite a number of their most promising experts.

Errdo and his followers who had then taken to calling themselves the Devil tribe also occasionally intercepted slave shipments of their previous owners to bring those slaves under their banner of resistance.

The battle between the Devil tribe and their previous owners went on for years and through it all, there were occasional traces but the truces never held for long as there remained a lot of bad blood between the two.

The previous slave owners even took to a habit of forming alliances against the Devil tribe but were never victorious and their alliances never lasted. Many were much more interested in seeing them go down than in helping them.

All in all, the Devil tribe flourished more than the previous Slave owners did.

They reproduced and Errdo, who had been termed a saviour at the time, was not stingy about teaching anyone interested in the use of Devil spells and the cultivation through Devilish techniques.

Cosmic energy was still a part of their cultivation of course but it became more of a foundation with Devil energy being the main choice for battle... Being mostly humans, the Devils back them used Devil energy in a similar way to how humans use Cosmic energy.

Anyway, the conflict finally came to an end... The Devil tribe triumphed and they took over the territory of their previous owners in its entirety.

It was at this point that the Devil tribe truly established themselves as a force in the Dystopian continent but were nowhere near the level of the ruling triad that was the Dragon clan, Serpent clan, and Pheonix clan.

Errdo did not wish to vie for dominance with the ruling triad at the time and made it clear over and over again to his tribesmen that he was content with how things were.

He was a wise leader who did not wish to set his sights too high and did not wish to do anything that would put those under his rule at risk... Particularly those who could not truly defend themselves all that well.

Alas, he was too trusting...

Two centuries later, his comrade in arms, Kurol, who claimed to have been selected by their patron Devil Queen to replace Errdo, formed a coup... He killed Errdo and took his place as Chief of the tribe.

Kurol was the one who began the ritual of offering sacrifices for power and the very first sacrifice ever made in the Devil Tribe was Errdo.

Kurol offered Errdo's body to the Patron Devil queen in a smaller version of the now giant formation spreading all about the Devil tribe territory in the present day.

Many had not expected the sacrifice to be received and were in for a twisted surprise when the Devil queen accepted the sacrifice graciously and rewarded Kurol with a complete synthesized bloodline so that he was the first ever to possess a true Devil Bloodline.

The art of sacrificing then became a recurring affair that always rewarded the entire Tribe... And had, in more recent years, ascertained their hegemony.

Unlike Errdo, Kurol had grand ambitions... He actively wished to vie for power with the ruling triad and it was towards this goal that he worked all through his lifespan.

He was smart about it and challenged no one until he was sure the Tribe's fighting force was ready... Alas, that never happened, and only when he was dead and his daughter took his place, did the dream begin moving towards reality.

Koral, his daughter, was a Devil spell casting genius who shared her father's vision and it was during her reign that it became a reality.

A lot of schemes, battles, and compromises were involved before the Triad became a Quad.

What helped the Devil tribe the most was that they did not rely on constant reproduction to strengthen their forces, unlike the other three ruling clans who were very protective of their bloodline and would hardly routinely mix with others.

The Devil tribe recruited anyone they saw as promising and then performed a ritual that made said selected fellow into a Pseudo-Devil and if they wished not to be so drastic, they could simply instill the fellow with Devil energy and teach them to cast Devil spells.

All manner of beasts from all manner of races, after gaining human forms, had been allowed to become members of the Devil tribe, and it was why the entire territory of the Devil Tribe was a sea of diversity. It was not mainly a human-populated area anymore... It never had really been in the first place.

Even the ruling family that was subject to the occasional change, was now mixed and there were fewer restrictions in the choosing of a mate.

Also, their constant sacrifices and use of surrounding conflict to generate negative energy that strengthened their cultivation foundations was also a massive plus.

Not to mention, the trio of the Dragon clan, Serpent clan, and Pheonix clan saw a lot of advantages in having the Devil tribe as allies... They were particularly heartless and unscrupulous with a history of backstabs going way back and occurring quite frequently. Also, they had a knack for weird forbidden techniques born of even more weird experiments.

Looking into their history had Hal smiling to himself as his mind worked furiously on his course of action now that he was approaching this unscrupulous bunch.

The carriage stopped,

"W-we are here" the driver stammered was a hint of fear in his voice because Sassy was in front of him and was the one who had been keeping motivated to keep up the pace.

Hal was unbothered and just looked out the carriage window with a smile as he eyed the magnificence of the estate belonging to the Devil Tribal Chief,

"Indeed we are"