Blade Of The Devilkin

Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Thousands of tiny Devilkin streamed out from the mouth of the volcano. This sight was somewhat startling, but Beelze soon realized that those who had arrived near the base earlier weren't heading all the way down. Instead, they were investigating something on the inner walls of the volcano.

Using their claws, they tapped and probed at the inner walls. As Beelze pondered their actions, one of the Devilkin shrieked in surprise and began digging frantically at the spot he had tapped. Surprisingly, the other Devilkin rushed over to assist!

It was a bizarre scene. Beelze witnessed Devilkin cooperating with each other for the first time!

In no time, they dug out a black hole. With cheers, the Devilkin swarmed inside! It wasn't just one hole; they made numerous openings all along the inner walls, and nearby Devilkin poured in together.

Beelze finally grasped that these holes were weak points in the volcano's structure. Despite the countless caves within, each eruption filled them with magma. Yet, the pressure wasn't strong enough to prevent the Devilkin from redigging them.

This behavior had been etched into Devilkin genes for millions of years.

Understanding this, Beelze wasted no time. He joined a group of Devilkin and began digging a hole to enter a cave. Thousands of Devilkin vanished into the caves in an orderly manner, resembling ants returning to their nests. Soon after they disappeared, a loud boom echoed. Hot magma burst through from beneath the rocks and shot into the sky.

With utmost caution, Beelze followed the Devilkin into the dark cave. He remained vigilant against potential attacks from other Devilkin in this unfamiliar environment.

Strangely, the aggressiveness of these Devilkin had significantly diminished outside their hatching area. They hurried into the caves without any hint of attacking each other.

When the volcano erupted, a lot of magma poured into the hole they dug in the rear, blocking the hole again. However, none of the little Devilkin were hurt by the magma. Beelze thought the little Devilkin would stop once the magma stopped pouring in, but those in front did not stop at all.

Beelze could only continue moving forward because the little Devilkin behind him would push him and growl, hurrying him once he stopped and blocked the path.

Beelze did not expect the cave to be so long. He felt as though they had come a long way from the volcano.

And according to Beelze’s feeling, the cave seemed to be going diagonally all the way deep into the ground.

This meant that they were moving toward the crust…

Beelze was very anxious. He did not know where these little Devilkin were heading to, but he had a premonition.

Is the place they’re heading to where Devilkin really live?!

After an unknown period of time, strange emotional cheers suddenly traveled backward from the front. Upon hearing the cheer, the little Devilkin in the rear became agitated and hurried along. Beelze was driven by their movements and accelerated forward as well.

As expected, a bright light appeared from the front. After he walked in the cave for such a long time, Beelze’s eyes had adapted to the darkness, so the light he saw dazzled him.

But in fact, the light coming from the front was not strong at all. It was dim red and accompanied by a heatwave, rolling in without stopping…

Finally, Beelze reached the exit. It was the huge mouth of the cave, which made him look really small. However, Beelze could not attend to sighing in relief right now. Instead, he looked on dumbfounded at the scene that unfolded before him.

It turned out to be a massive underground space where a dimly-lit world appeared. The ground was scorched black soil, the forest was twisted black, and a large river formed by lava flowed slowly. The momentum moving the river came from the dozens of waterfalls of magma from the cave walls. They flowed from a great height accompanied by green smoke and sparks, stirring the airflow of the underground world, making the air hot. The hot winds rolled the black soot up from the ground, causing the air to be pretty dirty.

There was also a range of mountains, some of which were high and low, but most of them had the same color and tone. It could be said that this was a black and red world.

Black was the black ashes, while red was the redness from the flames…

From Beelze’s current perspective, he could only observe a small part of this underground world. There was a horizon in the distance that Beelze could not even begin to imagine how big it was. According to Beelze’s understanding, this underground world should be under the seabed, a cavity formed between the crust and the mantle. Here, the sky was a dome supported by the hardened rock, and the ground was heated up by the core, which was why it looked hot.

Beelze felt sorrow from within thinking about how he would need to live in this hell-like world. However, when the skin of his Devilkin body felt the searing air in here, his body actually jumped for joy, giving him an urge to enter this world. The contrast between his thoughts and his body made him want to laugh and cry at the same time.

The little Devilkin behind Beelze had already excitedly climbed down along the cave’s rock wall. Beelze stood there blankly for a while before he finally sighed and followed suit.

Those with wings had already flown out. Hundreds of thousands of little Devilkin that came from the hatching area poured out of the caves like ants and scattered into this underground world, but this scene felt underwhelming…

They were not the first batch of Devilkin to enter this world, nor would they be the last. How many such Devilkin lived in this underground world? And how many adult Devilkin were there?

What Beelze, who was climbing down along the wall of the cave, did not know was that he had only scrapped the uppermost level of the endless Abyss of the hell that was the Devilkin World.

Beelze carried a strange creature the size of a rabbit on his shoulder as he ran on the hot ground and carefully observed all around.

Walking through a dark forest, he carefully passed by the twisted branches of distorted trees. These trees were Devilish trees, and once any living creature touched the branches, they would immediately wrap around and frantically capture the prey.

Among the dark trees, there were many places with dense white spiderwebs. These spiderwebs were things that he had to be even more careful about, for where there were spiderwebs meant he had entered the hunting range of a spider Devilkin.

Suddenly, a peculiar cry came from the sky above the forest. Beelze quickly fell to the ground and put the strange creature he was carrying on his shoulder onto his back and lay motionless.

A giant shadow flew over him, but luckily, it did not seem to discover Beelze lying on the ground and flew straight over him.

Beelze was fortunate. He had already made plans to give up his prey. If that dark shadow were to swoop down on him, its first grab would have been the prey on his back…

Finally, he avoided all sorts of danger to come to a huge tree at the edge of the forest. This huge tree was already dead and decayed. However, there was a naturally formed hole at its roots, which had become Beelze’s residence.

After arriving at the tree hole, Beelze did not head into it immediately but first carefully observed the camouflage he had set up. Only when he found that there were no traces of it being disturbed did he pick up the rotten branches and leaves of the hole and go in with the prey.

In the cave, Beelze put down the prey on his shoulder and then let out a long sigh of relief.

It had been more than a week since he came to this underground world, and he had finally adapted to life here. Although there were many dangers to him in terms of environments and other predators, he could avoid them if he was careful.

Over the past week, Beelze’s greatest progress was learning how to hunt. He had no choice since all living creatures needed to eat to survive, and Beelze was naturally no exception. However, even now, the prey he could catch was limited.

In addition to the Devilkin, there were many other monsters living in the underground world. These monsters were equivalent to the wild beasts of the human world. However, to be honest, it was difficult for Beelze to distinguish between the low-rank Devilkin and the monsters by appearance alone. From his observations, most of the low-rank Devilkin were basically following their physical instincts to hunt, kill, and destroy. This behavior did not show much wisdom at all and was not much different from that of the monsters.

In other words, they had low intelligence…

Nonetheless, it did not mean that they were pushovers. In fact, the Devilkin race was the master of this world. Even a low-rank Devilkin’s body would become stronger and stronger as they gradually grew into adulthood. If they could survive for a long time, they would gradually move up to the top of the food chain.

The infant Devilkin were existences only at the low rank, and they would slowly upgrade to the middle-low rank and finally the top of the low rank when they matured. If their bloodlines were not too complicated, they might even have the chance to promote to middle-rank Devilkin…

Beelze did not know what a middle-rank Devilkin looked like because he had not encountered one so far, so he had been wondering if there was a world deeper than where he was that he could enter through some entrances. However, Beelze’s scope of exploration was limited, and he had yet to find these entrances.

These were the conclusions that Beelze made while observing coupled with some educated guesses. Even if there were deviations, it seemed like he was not too far off the mark…

At the same time, Beelze’s body was growing, becoming slightly bigger and taller. He might not have passed 1.4 meters yet, but his Attack Element increased by two in the system interface. His speed also increased a little, although his Mana did not move at all. The one with the most change was his activity, increasing a whole five to eighteen

Attack, speed, and Mana were easy to understand, but the activity Element baffled Beelze slightly. According to his experience during this period, he realized that it might be referring to his vitality!

A strong vitality represented the degree of injury he could withstand and the amount of time he would need to recover after his injury…

After putting his prey down, Beelze started preparing his dinner.

Beelze did not know what to call this strange creature he caught, but it should be some kind of monster, and an infant one at that. This was because Beelze saw it drilling out of the ground and caught it when it tried to climb onto a tree. In his memory, only certain insects would have such behavior.

This strange monster looked like a fat worm, but it had four claw-like legs, resembling an ant without its pliers, and a big hole on its head made by Beelze’s gun.

Beelze had not upgraded his revolver, but he had spent some time adding some details to the body of the gun. It now resembled the Colt Python revolver in his memory. After modifying the barrel to make it straighter, he realized he had a certain degree of accuracy at long-range shots, unlike how he only dared to fire at close range with the fifty cents special effects before…

As for why he refrained from upgrading his weapon, Beelze realized it wasn't cost-effective!

During this period, Beelze encountered several adult Devilkin. Although he only observed them from a distance, he noticed a significant improvement in their defense. In particular, the insect-shaped low-rank Devilkin with a shiny metallic carapace seemed impervious even to bullets.

Unless Beelze was willing to expend a large number of Spirits to add Elements like Break Armor and Penetration, he would face a gruesome fate against such defensive-type Devilkin with his current firearm.

Recognizing the limitations of external weapons in the future, Beelze shifted his focus to transforming his own body.

His innate Attack was genuine, especially for creatures like Devilkin, but Beelze needed time to mature. According to the system’s assessment, reaching the top of the low rank in this lifetime would be challenging for him. Promotion was beyond his reach due to his complex bloodline, a limitation shared by most other newly hatched Devilkin.

However, the system provided Beelze with an alternative path. Instead of risking hunts for food, he could conjure and exchange human delicacies like braised beef and Dongpo pork knuckles by consuming Spirits. He pursued this without hesitation, as accumulating Spirits was essential for his body transformation plan.

His prey also possessed Spirits, albeit of lower quality. The quality of Spirits appeared linked to the intelligence and emotional depth of the deceased. With his current capabilities, Beelze could only obtain Spirits of lower quality and hoped to acquire more.

In the past week, he had captured and obtained Spirits from four prey. Though smaller than those of the previous six-eyed Devilkin, Beelze deemed them sufficient.

Beelze ate the insect-like monster, suppressing his psychological discomfort. He dared not light a fire to cook it, fearing the scent would attract formidable enemies. The lingering smell of blood in the forest didn't worry him too much; it was already pervasive.

Survival came first before he could ensure his safety...

After satisfying his hunger, Beelze summoned the system interface and commenced his first physical transformation.