The Dark Demon Lord - Chapter 83

Arnin silently continued to cultivate using the pool of blood created using the two bodies. The amount of essence he gained was not negligible, but it wasn’t too great either. The only positive thing about this essence was that it was from two cultivators from the Essence Manifest – Sky realm. It was more abundant in energy than blood from normal Orb Birth cultivators.

The bun haired girl did not try and take her sister away during this time. She had completely lost any thoughts of trying to escape. In the past, she knew that escaping would be extremely difficult, but now she knew it was nearly impossible. Arnin was just too strong and fast.

The only thing that confused her was what would happen to Arnin after every fight. ‘Why does it seem that he gets weaker after his every attack? Is this supposed to be a trick to lure people towards him, or is it something else?’ She didn’t say this out loud though since she felt that it could put her in danger.

Everything was silent on the battlefield around Arnin. His aura was slowly increasing and becoming more stable, which the bun haired could feel with her senses. She was confused, but did not question.

An hour passed by quickly; no one disturbed them or even tried to get close. Weaker people had engraved Arnin’s special physical characteristics into their minds. They would avoid him more than anyone else. If they did die, they would rather die quickly and painlessly rather than slowly and painfully.

Arnin slowly opened his eyes. His purple eyes glimmered under the artificial light of the battlefield. He stood up and stretched his body slightly, taking a deep breath. ‘My essence is still around the early stages of Orb Birth – Hell, but its a little more than what I had before though.’ Arnin had this thought but it didn’t make him feel too great. He needed to quickly find a way to heal his body so that he would not need to worry about his realm dropping after every fight, or dropping while he wasn’t doing anything at all.

This whole idea of his realm dropping every second was not suited for the battlefield, especially when his life could be endangered at any moment. Absorbing blood was not a long term solution; it was too risky.

Arnin walked towards the unconscious girl’s body and picked her up. He then looked at the bun haired girl. “Hey, take your sister. I am not going to hold onto her anymore.” Arnin tossed the unconscious girl towards her sister.

She was shocked when Arnin let her hold her sister. Quickly, she moved forward and caught her sibling, and then turned around. There was a slight smile on her face, but it was still filled with caution. She didn’t say anything to Arnin since she was scared that if she stayed any longer, he might change his mind. After she got her sister, she began to walk away from Arnin, however the latter only scoffed at her actions.

“Where are you going?” Arnin called from behind. The bun haired girl turned her head and looked at Arnin with confusion and fear.

“C-can’t I g-go now?” She was confused by Arnin’s action.

Arnin walked towards her with the blade dragging beside him. A slight smile that was cold as ice was on his face as his demonic purple eyes looked at the girl. “I never said you can go. All I said was that you will be holding your sister from now on.”

When she heard his words, she felt as though the last shimmer of hope she had completely dissipated like a fire’s heat during a cold winter. Even though she was holding onto her sister, she knew that escaping would not be possible.

Arnin was not worried that his actions would give the girl a chance to escape. He knew that because of how swiftly he killed the Essence Manifest – Sky cultivator, the bun haired girl would not even think about escaping anymore. He had done his job of scaring her into a form of submission.

“Tell me, do you know where the highest concentrations of cultivators are? Is there a certain place where most people will gather?” In every battlefield, there was always a focal point. It was the place where the most people gathered. Although this was a competition, there would be a place where most people would come and fight since roaming around randomly would not do anyone any good.

The bun haired girl quickly snapped out of her sorrowful state and looked at Arnin with dull eyes. She held more fear for Arnin than hate now. The type of fear that she knew that would never leave.

“Gathering place?” The bun haired hair began to think about whether she had ever heard of such a place being mentioned before. Suddenly, she remembered a something that she and the other contenders were told before the competition began.

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‘During this competition, many people will be killed. Most will be a part of the weakest group entering, however that doesn’t mean that the weakest don’t have a chance of surviving.’ In this flashback, the bun haired girl remembered the words of a certain proctor. ‘Our school has set up three areas in the battlefield that the weakest and even the strongest can use to quickly increase their strength.’

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Her eyes sparked a little when she remembered this. In the past, her sisters wanted to head over to one of the three places in order to see what they had, but due to them deciding to attack Arnin first, that never happened.

“I can’t say where everyone is going to gather in the end, but there are three places where lots of people are likely to gather.” She spoke after some hesitation. If Arnin did take her to one of these three locations, then there was a chance that she would finally be able to escape his clutches, but she also felt scared that he would kill her before going to the places in order to prevent her from ever escaping.

Arnin raised one of his eyebrows and calmly gazed at the bun haired girl. “What are these three places that you are talking about, and where are they located?”

The bun haired girl took a deep breath. ‘This is my only chance to escape from him. I need to tell him. If he takes me there, then that would be for the best, but if he kills me now, then I can only blame myself for being too confident in the past.’ She sighed a little before strengthening her resolve.

“Before the competition started, we were told about three special locations. These locations would supposedly give weaker cultivators a chance to survive in the competition. We were also told that it would allow both weak and strong cultivators to increase their strength. I am assuming that most people are heading there, if they’re not there already.” Arnin nodded his head as he heard her explanation. This made sense to him because if there was no way for weaker cultivators to survive, then why would they partake in such a competition? Why not just make the stronger ones fight it out and see who can get in and who can’t?

Strength was very important, but being talented and having high comprehension skills was also extremely important. Allowing cultivators to fight in such a deadly place and seek out opportunities would only make them stronger.

“Alright, lead me to one of these so called ‘special places’. I want to see for myself how ‘special’ they really are.” Arnin wasn’t really interested in the opportunity to increase his strength since that would do him little good. He already had his own path figured out, and was skilled enough to go through with it without needing special encounters. Right now, he needed to heal his body before doing anything else.

Going to a place where large amounts of cultivators gathered would allow him to kill more people and absorb their blood. Plus he could possibly run into some stronger cultivators and use their blood to boost his quantity of essence to a higher degree. Of course, these people could not be too strong, or else that would lead him to death.

With no other choice, the bun haired began to lead Arnin. She still held some hope that this place would be her chance to find some way to escape, however she didn’t keep her hopes too high. Arnin was extremely strong, and only people around the late stages of Essence Manifest would be able to deal with him, especially those who could fight above their own realm.

Alas, she did not carry any thoughts of asking such geniuses for help. Why would they go out of their way to help her, a weak cultivator, out?

As Arnin was following behind the bun haired girl, he began to thoroughly inspect the inside of his body. He still carried hopes of healing himself, and knew that with enough time he would find a way to accomplish it, but he needed to do it quick. He needed to gain enough power in order to fuse with his Demon Lord power and then enter a new realm. Only then would he be confident entering the other worlds.

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As Arnin continued to build his infamous reputation as the Demonic Joker in the deadly battlefield, the many people he left behind in Lepidoptera Academy were living quite blissfully, especially his two slaves.

No one except the top echelon of the academy knew what happened to Arnin. The principal had commanded that the news of Arnin being attacked and taken away should be kept secret until he was located and killed or imprisoned.

This was to make sure that the academy’s reputation would not be tainted, or become known as a place where others can rampantly enter and kidnap students. Plus, students would begin to lose their trust in the academy, thus lowering their loyalty to a place that could not even protect them. This would not be good for the principal as that would not allow him to create any future puppets that would risk everything for the academy.

The biggest reason that Arnin’s disappearance was not suspected was because many knew that he visited the tenth floor in order to cultivate. Although it was very rare for people of such low realms to cultivate for an extended period of time, it wasn’t impossible. Plus, with the way Arnin was growing in power so quickly, it made more sense that he would spend more time training than others.

Torne and Kurse, although scared that Arnin would return and continue torturing them, still felt that it was heavenly to have such a demon master missing for around two weeks. They were able to finally cultivate a little in peace. Although their strength had not improved greatly, their bodies were much more stable than before, especially Torne’s. He didn’t make a complete recovery from Arnin’s ‘experiments’ but he was able to walk around without feeling any pain. The only problem that Torne still faced was that he found it exceedingly difficult to speak, and whenever he took a breath from his mouth, he would feel intense pain.

After he was tortured by Arnin, the physicians questioned how he got so injured overnight. He didn’t divulge any information, in fear that Arnin would conduct worse experiments on him, plus saying anything would be useless.

Other than the two slaves, Lilise and Elidia were also doing quite well. Although Lilise was curious as to why Arnin was taking so long with his ‘cultivation’, she couldn’t do much about it. Lilise had gained some favour from her fellow students ever since she made a breakthrough into Orb Birth – Earth, plus others witnessed her quick cultivation speed, making her a little more popular. She was around the middle stages of Orb Birth – Earth now, but still had a long way to go before reaching the Sky realm.

Elidia, on the other hand, was even more monstrous. In just two weeks, she had made it to the peak of Orb Birth – Earth and was extremely close to breaking through into the Sky realm. Even the Butterfly teachers were praising her talent, and many were even debating whether they should move her into the Moth group.

Of course, all of this was because of the hint of blackness that had appeared around her Orb after the experience she had with Arnin. Although she was getting more attention from students and teachers alike, Elidia maintained a cold front. She was still somewhat traumatized after Arnin’s deeds so she felt that staying away from others would be better for her.

Akig was the only one out of the many people who had done nothing at all. All day, he would sleep, occasionally eating things from the forest. He had been waiting for Arnin, and with him not coming back for a while, Akig was very bored. He didn’t have much to do other than stroll around the outer forest and sometimes sneak back into the house.

Even though he was the laziest of them all, he made significant progress in his strength. Since he was constantly in the forest, he was able to slowly overcome some of his fears and even learned to use some of his beastly strength. Even Akig didn’t notice his own progression in this area.

Out of the many that were in the academy, the one that had yet to make any appearance was Vilis. He was still in his slumber which should have ended a long time ago. Even Arnin assumed that it would just last for a few days, or maybe a week, but it was the second week and Vilis was still deep asleep. One could only imagine what kind of tiger he ate. Although it seemed quite normal on the surface, it was probably much more mysterious than that since it allowed Vilis to stay in slumber for such a long period of time.

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Far away from the planet of Afloria, back in the black hole where Arnin’s mansion was located, a group of mythical beasts gathered. All of them were on their knees, facing a large demon with two horns. This was Arnin’s demon servant, Kulgag, who was assigned to watch over his home while he was away.

“Fellow Lords, please listen to some urgent news that I have just received.” Kulgag spoke out loud. The kneeling lords lifted their heads and looked towards this two horned demon servant. “I have just received word from the Wolf Lord that out great Demon Lord Arnin has already begun his travels and he will not be coming back for a long period of time.” When the Lords heard this, chaos spread throughout the hall.

“So it is true, Great Demon Lord Arnin has truly gone out for his own tasks and it seems like this time, he will be out for much longer the usual. We may be able to have at least a million years of peace now.” Some of the Lords discussed with smiles plastered over their faces. Most stayed in their humanoid forms inside the Great Hole Mansion out of fear and respect for the great Demon Lord.

Kulgag didn’t mind the reaction that the many Lords had. It was a given for them to be happy that Demon Lord Arnin was gone. Arnin was a bloodthirsty Demon who would kill when he felt and had even exterminated over a thousand races. Even the Heaven Lord and Hell Lord quaked in his presence, let alone such small Lords.

‘Maybe we can truly have peace for a longer period of time now, but why does it feel like the future will be more bleak? Hmmm, Wolf Lord’