Kaelan looked at the dishevelled men and women confined within the cages.
Then he turned toward the Rabbit Demon.
“You can leave.”
The Rabbit Demon did not object.
Instead, she immediately assumed the Crow Demon possessed a secret pill-refining technique that he did not wish others to witness.
She respectfully lowered her head.
“I will be waiting outside the door, Senior.”
Then she climbed the staircase and disappeared from sight.
Soon, only Kaelan and the prisoners remained.
Silence filled the underground chamber.
Countless eyes stared at him.
Some were filled with fear.
Some with hatred.
Some with despair.
Others still carried a faint trace of hope.
Kaelan ignored them.
Instead, he stood motionless and looked at them quietly.
For the first time since entering the chamber, he allowed himself to think.
He felt pity.
He felt sympathy.
Not because he knew these people.
Not because they had done anything to deserve mercy.
But because they were human.
And once, long ago, so had he.
Yet as soon as the thought appeared, another memory surfaced.
His goal.
Destroy the world.
Every living creature within it.
Humans.
Demons.
Beasts.
Spiritualists.
Warriors.
Everything.
Standing outside the world, he had never truly considered the consequences.
The world had simply been a target.
A source of knowledge.
A source of food.
A stepping stone on his path.
Yet standing here among living humans, he finally understood what that truly meant.
He would kill them all.
The realisation weighed heavily upon him.
His heart felt strangely heavy.
For a long time, he remained frozen in place.
Processing his thoughts.
Sorting through emotions he had not experienced in centuries.
Eventually, clarity emerged.
A phrase from Earth surfaced in his memories.
“Those who are not of our race will inevitably have different hearts.”
Humans would not hesitate to kill him.
If they discovered his true identity as a Void Monster, they would hunt him without mercy.
To them, he was not human.
He was a harbinger of destruction.
A monster born to devour worlds.
Likewise, he was not truly human anymore.
His real body was a Void Monster.
This crow was merely a clone.
Two thousand years drifting through the Void had changed him.
Coming to this world had weakened the influence of his Void Monster instincts.
Meeting humans again after so long had awakened old memories.
Those memories had made him unconsciously think of himself as human.
But he was not.
Not anymore.
“I have no relation to humans.”
As the thought settled, the conflict within him gradually faded.
The pity remained.
The sympathy remained.
But neither would stop him.
He would still refine them into Flesh and Blood Pills.
His path would not change.
However, before that, he intended to extract every useful piece of knowledge they possessed.
Among the prisoners were several Spiritualists.
From them, he could learn the Spiritualist Way.
Among the warriors, he could learn the cultivation realms beyond First-Rate Warrior.
Knowledge came before resources.
Kaelan walked toward the nearest Spiritualist.
The human immediately backed away in terror.
Kaelan ignored him.
His Spirit entered the prisoner’s Soul Space.
Moments later, memories began flowing into his mind.
As he searched one Spiritualist after another, his understanding rapidly increased.
The foundation of Spiritualist cultivation was the Spiritual Body.
Only humans born with Spiritual Bodies could become Spiritualists.
Unlike warriors, who cultivated through techniques and training, Spiritualists relied upon their bodies’ natural affinity with Spiritual Energy.
The Spiritual Body allowed them to absorb Spiritual Energy directly from the environment.
Without a Spiritual Body, Spiritualist cultivation was impossible.
As more memories flowed into his mind, Kaelan gradually pieced together the Spiritualist cultivation system.
The cultivation realms were surprisingly simple.
Mortal Realm.
Extraordinary Realm.
Mysterious Realm.
Heavenly Realm.
However, according to every Spiritualist he examined, no one in recorded history had successfully reached the Heavenly Realm.
The reason was not cultivation techniques.
Nor resources.
The true obstacle was the Spiritual Body itself.
Spiritual Bodies were divided into grades.
Mortal Spiritual Body.
Extraordinary Spiritual Body.
Mysterious Spiritual Body.
Heavenly Spiritual Body.
Most Spiritualists were born with Mortal Spiritual Bodies.
A Mortal Spiritual Body could only support cultivation to the peak of the Mortal Realm.
At that point, advancement became impossible.
To continue cultivating, the Spiritual Body itself had to evolve.
That process was extraordinarily difficult.
Among a thousand Spiritualists with Mortal Spiritual Bodies, only one successfully evolved their body into an Extraordinary Spiritual Body.
The difficulty increased tenfold with each advancement.
Advancing from Extraordinary to Mysterious was ten times harder.
Advancing from Mysterious to Heavenly was another ten times harder.
More importantly, according to all available records, nobody had ever been born with a Heavenly Spiritual Body.
Not a single example existed.
As Kaelan continued searching memories, he also uncovered information regarding the higher realms of demon cultivation.
The realm beyond the Demon Lord.
Demon King.
A true ruler among demons.
A being capable of dominating entire regions.
Unfortunately, after the ancient curse descended upon demonkind, no demon had successfully broken through to the Demon King Realm.
Not one.
For centuries, countless geniuses had tried.
All had failed.
The curse remained an invisible wall blocking the path forward.
Kaelan slowly withdrew his Spirit.
His understanding of the world had increased once again.
And he had not even begun searching the warriors yet.
From the Spiritualists’ memories alone, Kaelan had already learned the realm beyond First-Rate Warrior.
The Extraordinary Martial Realm.
Unlike ordinary martial artists, Extraordinary Martial Artists could absorb Spiritual Energy from the environment.
However, their absorption speed was inferior to even the weakest Spiritualist possessing a Mortal Spiritual Body.
For that reason, the Extraordinary Realm was widely considered the end of the Martial Path.
The next stage required a transformation of the body itself.
A martial artist had to evolve their body into a Spiritual Body.
Only then could they continue advancing.
Most talented martial artists could eventually evolve their bodies into Mortal Spiritual Bodies.
A few exceptional geniuses could even advance further and obtain Extraordinary Spiritual Bodies.
However, the realm beyond required a Mysterious Spiritual Body.
According to all the memories Kaelan examined, no martial artist had ever succeeded in reaching that stage.
The limitation was lifespan.
Martial artists simply did not live long enough.
Even if they somehow gathered the necessary resources, they rarely had sufficient time to complete the transformation.
After organising the information, Kaelan began searching the warriors’ memories.
Hours passed.
One soul after another opened before him.
The information he obtained largely confirmed what he had already learned.
The Extraordinary Martial Realm was indeed the final known realm of martial cultivation.
Beyond it lay the path of Spiritualists.
Eventually, Kaelan finished extracting every useful memory.
Without hesitation, he refined all the prisoners into Flesh and Blood Pills.
The underground chamber gradually fell silent.
One human after another disappeared.
Their flesh, blood, bones, and vitality condensed into crimson pills.
By the time the refinement ended, dozens of top-quality Flesh and Blood Pills floated before him.
Only then did Kaelan leave.
A short while later, a knock sounded upon a wooden door.
Inside a private room, a humanoid Wolf Demon sat behind an elegant desk.
Stacks of documents were arranged neatly before him.
“Come in,” he said.
The door opened.
The Rabbit Demon, Lany, stepped inside carrying a tray.
Several crimson pills rested upon it.
The Wolf Demon’s eyes immediately narrowed.
“Did the Crow Demon refine all the humans?”
Lany nodded.
“Yes, Lord.”
She revealed the pills.
“All of them are top quality.”
“I paid him fifty-four Intermediate-Quality Spirit Dew.”
The Wolf Demon tapped a claw against the desk.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Then a cruel sneer appeared on his face.
“Find out where he lives.”
Lany blinked.
“Are we going to invite him to join us?”
The Wolf Demon scoffed.
“Invite him?”
His sneer widened.
“I want to capture him.”
“Why should I continue paying him when he can refine Flesh and Blood Pills for me for free?”
Lany immediately lowered her head.
“I understand, Lord.”
Then she turned and left the room.
Meanwhile, Kaelan had already returned to the inn.
After entering his room, he locked the door and began arranging the ritual.
Hours later, the preparations were complete.
A large ritual circle covered the floor.
Countless symbols and dark patterns intertwined within it.
Kaelan carefully inspected every line before nodding in satisfaction.
Then he closed every window and shutter.
Darkness swallowed the room.
Only a single oil lamp remained lit.
Its faint light illuminated his body.
A long shadow stretched across the floor.
The shadow fell directly into the centre of the ritual circle.
Normally, another person was required to activate the ritual.
Kaelan had no such assistant.
Instead, he used his Spirit.
His spiritual power descended upon the formation.
The ritual immediately activated.
Dark light spread through the room.
The shadows along the walls began writhing like living creatures.
They twisted.
Danced.
And slowly stretched toward the centre of the formation.
Kaelan glanced over his shoulder.
The ritual behind him shone with increasing intensity.
Then a powerful force seized his shadow.
The shadow was pulled away from his body and dragged into the centre of the circle.
At the same moment, an image appeared within Kaelan’s mind.
A shadow.
And a blade.
The ritual intended for him to sever one of his wings.
That was the standard method.
Kaelan ignored it.
Instead, he directed the blade toward the point where his shadow connected to his body.
The base of the shadow beneath his feet.
The blade descended.
Pain shot through him.
The sensation was unpleasant.
Yet compared to separating a fragment of his True Spirit, it was insignificant.
The shadow connection snapped.
Instantly, his shadow separated from him completely.
For a brief moment, it lay motionless within the ritual.
Then Kaelan stepped forward and stood upon it.
The detached shadow immediately moved.
Like liquid darkness, it climbed onto his claws.
Then his legs.
His body.
His wings.
His neck.
His beak.
Finally, it covered his head.
The darkness merged completely with him once more.
The connection had been restored.
Yet it was no longer the same.
Kaelan could clearly feel it.
His shadow had become part of him.
An extension of his body.
An extension of his will.
For the first time, he could consciously control his own shadow.