NOVEL NEXT Chapter 48: Caught
The world of mages is expansive and continually growing.
Even rank 9 mages cannot travel from one end to another before they die of old age.
The majority of the mage world is comprised of vast oceans, interspersed with various continents and islands. The distance between each continent is so significant that on mortal continents, nobody even knows other continents exist.
...
'Soil,' as known by its inhabitants, is a small island inhabited by humans and snow elves. But from the perspective of mortals who live here, they are the entire world.
The Soil Island has been fully integrated.
There are no cities that are exclusively for either elves or humans. All live together.
Despite full integration and years of interspecies marriages, pure-blooded humans and elves still exist.
Genetics work strangely in this world.
What happens when two half-human/elf marry?
There are three scenarios of what species the child would be: a pure-blood elf, a pure-blood human, or another half-elf.
What if one parent is half-elf/human and the other a pure human? Their children would also be one of three: a pure-blood elf, a pure-blood human, or another half-elf, with the possibility of the child being pure human the most and the chance of the child being pure elf the least.
There is no 80% human and 20% elf; it's either 50-50 or 100% elf or human.
It's not uncommon for a pure human to be born as a result of a marriage between two half-elves.
It is the main reason humans and other species have not completely merged even after this long period. Some suspect this phenomenon's reason to be Original duty.
Original duty essentially seeks to maintain the status quo, so it manipulated genetic rules to prevent any race from disappearing. Sure, it had a weak will, but even a weak will was enough to make this 'minor' tweak.
Now, with the two rivers merged, nothing has changed. After all, nothing in the settings of the original duty changed; only some settings of the Protector were modified.
...
The form of government in Soil is a referendum democracy, where the residents vote on all important decisions.
One person is chosen every three years to act as the Presiding Officer, with very limited powers for organizing referendums. There was also a Constitutional Court.
The Constitution had only one provision. It read, "No law passed shall limit what the future generation can decide by a referendum."
It basically means you cannot pass a referendum that abolishes the referendum process or delegate power to a 'council of experts'. The Constitutional Court can strike down any law passed by the people that violate it.
...
Richie was in line to vote.
He was a human with brown skin and a bald head, looking very muscular. He ran a body training shop, and It was thriving!
He was a happy man who never cared about politics. That is until this referendum qualified for a vote.
Richie didn't understand its logic. The proposal banned many nutrient foods he used for bodybuilding. The proponents said they were harmful, causing many diseases, but Richie vehemently disagreed.
Using them too much can indeed be harmful, but that's true for everything, not just the "foods" needed for bodybuilding.
As a result, he and his friends came out in numbers to vote it down.
While he was waiting, suddenly, he felt a vibration.
"Is it an earthquake?" he thought. It was his last thought!
The next moment, the whole polling place exploded into a raging inferno, killing countless people.
...
Zagronan laughed and shouted, "It feels good to do everything I want! The mage world is so much fun!"
In hell, he never had the opportunity to destroy cities.
Cities were controlled by the nobles, who enforced strict laws against violence.
"Yeah, it's a great honeymoon!" said Lana, who was already pregnant again.
Rachel just looked on and ignored everything.
"I'm going to cook some of the humans and see how they taste," said Lana, who was used to eating her own babies.
"Leave some for me," said Zagronan.
Demons eat each other every day, so eating humans, who are a different species, is nothing.
Lana looked around and found some corpses, which were pure carbon, burnt by Zagronan's rank 5 'inferno.'
"They're burnt! Don't use fire spells anymore! You ruined the food!" Lana looked with disappointment, appearing hungry.
Zagronan nodded.
They soon moved to another city.
Zagronan cast 'Super Wide-Motionless.'
More than a hundred thousand people suddenly remained motionless.
The 'motionless' spell is based on the way of energy. It is very similar to 'Freez' but a bit weaker and doesn't have the side effects of 'Freez.' Being frozen is fatal for mortals, but being motionless is harmless if only for a short time.
"Let's feast!" Zagronan said, looking at the many delicious-looking humans and elves.
...
Lucy was a girl with blonde hair and white skin. Most people considered her to be very beautiful.
She is only 21 years old!
Nowadays, almost everyone is more than a hundred years old. Only people chosen by a lottery are allowed to have children. Lucy is the child of two lucky people who won the lottery.
As a 21-year-old in a society where everyone is over a century old... it's difficult, to say the least.
There is a school where all the children born gather, but outside of that, it's impossible to find any friends.
Everyone is very skilled in their work, so finding a job is also very difficult. If it weren't for her parents' help, she wouldn't be able to work. After all, people with decades of experience are preferred no matter what job.
A few months ago, Lucy decided to become an artist. As one of the few young people, she is a kind of celebrity, so by selling her artworks, she might be able to earn a lot of money.
She looked at the clear sky and started painting.
Midway, she looked suspiciously. "What is that?" She saw a huge naked woman in the sky!
Suddenly, the woman moved to her side with unbelievable speed. Before she could react, she was caught. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" she screamed as Lana bit off one of her legs!
"Humans are so delicious!" With the next bite, Lana ate her whole! "Let's find more," Lana thought with excitement. She also wanted to try human children.
...
Zagronan was in a building. He wasn't actually a Glutton, so after trying different types and ages of humans and elves, he stopped eating.
"At least, if someone asks me if I know how humans taste, I won't be embarrassed!" he thought.
Humans are a luxury food in hell, with only the strongest generals and nobles having the chance to try them.
When he was in Hotblood City, some rank 6 generals brought human/elf meat to show off. At that time, Zagronan was ashamed that he didn't even know the taste, but now, that shadow is gone.
He flew to the sky and waited for Lana to finish her meals. After a few days, Lana returned satisfied.
"Let's go to the next city; I especially liked the taste of newborn humans," Lana said while smiling.
"Sure, whatever you say," Zagronan replied with a smile.
...
After destroying Soil Island, Zagronan and Lana decided to move to a whole new continent. It would take years, even with Zagronan's powerful spells, but islands are too small for them, so they decided to do it.
"What's the point of all this destruction? Don't you want to improve your bloodline to rank 6?" asked Rachel.
"How can I do it? There is no royal demon around here!" answered Zagronan.
"I give you 100 years to advance to rank 6. If you don't, there will be serious consequences!" Rachel warned.
Zagronan's expression turned serious.
"If my bloodline is still not rank 6 after 100 years, we'll use the avatar method," he said.
With an avatar, he can temporarily be promoted to rank 6.
Avatars are not separate from the body; they get all their energy and thoughts from the main body. When an avatar is promoted, Rachel can also be promoted.
Rachel discovered this method by checking the reflection thousands of times.
However, an avatar cannot have a higher rank than the true body. If an avatar undergoes a 'jump rank,' it will explode if its rank becomes higher than the main body.
The jump rank increases the rank as it should, but what happens afterward has nothing to do with it anymore.
As for clones, a clone has independent thinking, but it still cannot have a higher rank than the main body, so the same rule applies to it.
As for incarnations, there are two types. One type of incarnation is completely detached from the real body.
Almost nobody makes this type of incarnation because it will almost always betray the real body. This type of incarnation can have a higher rank than the real body, but if Zagronan does this and gives the jump rank to it, the system wouldn't count it as the host, and any increase in rank wouldn't help Rachel.
Only demon kings with a 'shared mind' have this type of incarnation.
The other type of incarnation is the one that everyone else, except demon kings, uses when they want an incarnation. It still has the possibility of betrayal, but it can communicate with the real body in real-time and can be monitored.
It also cannot have a higher rank than the main body. Rachel's incarnations are the most similar to this.
The difference between a clone and the second type of incarnation is that clones cannot generate energy and can only operate based on the energy given to them. In contrast, incarnations can independently find energy for themselves.
Another difference is that incarnations always start at rank 0, while clones can be any rank, as long as their energy is enough.
Zagronan and Rachel are both unwilling to do this, as it would waste a rank 6 'jump rank,' but if there is no other choice, Rachel is willing to go down this road.
Rachel nodded and stopped talking.
...
Twenty-ninth day of the tenth month of the year 1000166
Rachel continued to expand her incarnations.
With the help of god of fate, she acquired a lot of rank 4 'jump ranks' and sent them to her hosts in the mage world and heaven. She was very careful in choosing hosts in heaven, as she didn't want anything to be leaked to other gods.
Currently, there are 12 rank 5 Rachels, 59 rank 4 Rachels, 1 rank 3 Rachel, 2 rank 2 Rachels, 1 rank 1 Rachel, and 138 rank 0 Rachels. She has tentacles everywhere!
She is strong in heaven but weak in hell because the God of Fate cannot send 'jump ranks' to hell.
Incarnations in hell are mostly rank 0, while the rank 4 and rank 5 Rachels are all in heaven and the mage world.
After her numbers broke through 100, she began setting up a command chain based on seniority. In case of any disagreements, the more senior Rachel would win. Seniority was determined by age. Fortunately, in all these years, they never disagreed on anything.
With so many incarnations, she began to get a detailed grasp of the future.
Rachel no. 1, still with Zagronan, thought, "Based on all the evidence, hell has a huge problem. Demon kings are acting strangely. In general, the world looks in crisis. I don't know what it is, but I'm confident it's true. I hope mages and angels attack hell sooner," she thought.
She already knew that mages and gods had united to attack hell, but they had delayed it until now for unknown reasons.
Just then, she felt a huge deal of stress from an incarnation in hell. "What is going on?"
...
Alys was looking at the pill container in her hand. "Finally! I've finally found one invader!"
In all this time, she had been desperately trying to find the invaders, but no matter which method she used, they were well hidden.
So she stopped trying to detect them through magic and started using dumb demons to look for them manually. All demon kings ordered nobles to pay for special objects shaped like a pill container. It was from Corey's memory that they found the invader's shape.
After a while, they started finding some, but they could disappear quickly.
So this time, they informed Alys directly, who used a spell based on a universal law to stop it from escaping...
...
Rachel, no. 106, who was frustrated, cursed.
"Helish Box Skill is currently unusable!"
She was shocked when she saw this. "How can a skill not work? They always work!" She clicked on 'Hellish Box' a few more times, but the system prompt remained the same.
"I'm in trouble!"
...
Alys waved her hand and sent the pill container to headquarters for investigation.