Demon King Ascension System
Chapter 169

169 A Changed Perspective

With Blake’s deathly hug that spent an abundant amount of nether, the kind that was half as much of nether as the amount needed to cast a second realm spell, Blake’s body was emitting a dark flame so hot that the skin and muscles of the flying humanoid demon that made contact with him didn’t even last for a second before they melted away.

It had taken Blake by surprise, the power of the ‘hug’. It had literally made his enemy, the flying humanoid demon that supposedly came from a deeper demon realm, and also gave him a very hard time earlier, into a very similar accessory tool that was found in basic biology classes.

The flying humanoid demon had just melted out of existence, only leaving a human-like skeleton in Blake’s embrace.

And with the flying humanoid demon turned to a skeletal structure, Blake then began to descend down as there was no force keeping him up in the air.

Fortunately, Blake himself had his own wings and used them to glide safely to the ground below, while the flying humanoid demon that had turned into a skeleton was dropped from the sky, the dark orb that was the flying humanoid demon’s soul followed the skeletal structure falling onto the ground.

The flying humanoid demon’s speed was fast and with just a short amount of time that Blake and Cyra were pursuing it, the flying humanoid demon had made it far out of the humanoid demon’s base and fly on top of the forest.

Blake then glided over to Cyra, telling her to make sure that Robus was safe back at the center of the humanoid demon’s base while he himself flew down to take the flying humanoid demon’s soul.

Cyra then turned 180 degrees and went back to the humanoid demons’ base to check on the huge gorilla while Blake slowly glided down in a spiral so that he wouldn’t land too far away from the skeleton’s position.

Blake knew that Robus would be very hard to fight if he were to go all out without any restrictions put on him, but he just wanted to make sure that the same thing didn’t happen again to his gorilla best friend and told his new friend, the fire elemental variant type demon that excels in dealing damage, be it AOE or single attack to make sure that Robus wouldn’t be besieged from all sides again from the physical humanoid demons and the humanoid demon mages.

.....

However, what Blake didn’t know was that the moment he killed the flying humanoid demon, the tens of humanoid demons that somehow still remained standing in the humanoid demon’s base after the trio wreaking havoc inside, had lost all of their motivation to fight back to the enemy that they knew they couldn’t fight back.

With the death of the flying humanoid demon, the contract that bound those native humanoid demons with the flying humanoid demon was finally void, and the humanoid demons didn’t have to throw away their lives anymore to abide by the flying humanoid demon’s order.

The humanoid demons knew their strength was nowhere near their enemies that had rampaged their entire base in a matter of minutes. And being the most intelligent species of demons with the exception of certain types of variants, the humanoid demons knew instinctively to not throw their lives away.

So when Robus just rampaged inside and killed the unfortunate humanoid demons that had come into his sight, the others had made sure to steer out of the way and even made their own decision to get away from the humanoid demon’s base.

With no contract binding them and telling them what to do, the humanoid demons that were still alive left the area, trying their best to survive the ordeal that was brought by the huge gorilla in the middle of the base.

However, most of them were unlikely in their endeavor as the moment they left the base, a flying man-sized fireball came into their view.

And before the humanoid demons could do anything, dark flame fireballs were sent from the sky above them, turning them into crisps as they just thought they had successfully avoided being turned into pounded dough.

And with that, even though the native humanoid demons were now free from their contract, most of them still died as two demons, one huge gorilla and one little fiery demoness swept through the area.

Back in the forest, some distance away from the humanoid demon’s base, Blake was standing still with his eyes looking forward at the flying humanoid demon – or at least what was still left of him, which was a pile of broken skeletons.

The free fall from the sky above had destroyed whatever it was that kept the shape of the skeleton intact. And now, a literal pile of bones was what Blake was staring at with his eyes wide open.

It was the first time ever that Blake had actually spent the time to look at the enemy he had defeated instead of focusing on the soul that floated above the remains of the flying humanoid demon.

No matter how much he hated the demons he had fought, like the scrawny humanoid demon back then that had interrupted him while he was eating his soul, Blake didn’t spare a glance at their carcasses after he was done with them. Blake just cared for the souls that he knew would be a great meal for him and also increase his progress to get stronger.

However, currently, Blake had his eyes not on the soul, but rather, on the pile of bones that were scattered below the floating soul orb.

His fight with the flying humanoid demon was different from his other fights. The difference was, in the fight with the flying humanoid demon, Blake was entirely on its mercy, and the most that he could do was stall the flying humanoid demon.

He could fight back, but his attempt to do it couldn’t be said to be better than just throwing jabs at the flying humanoid demon.

The only spell in his arsenal that could deal any significant damage was the second realm darkness bullet spell, which even failed to end the fight and only gravely wounded his enemy.

Blake thought about how he should have died if not for Cyra coming in to save him and Robus at the last minute and killing all the humanoid demons that were about to chop him into pieces.

In his other fights, Blake knew what it’s like to be on the disadvantaged side. It happens when he was fighting strong demonic beasts that could destroy chunks of the forest with their bloodline power.

He would need to be careful in such situations and he couldn’t afford to be arrogant and overestimated himself.

He then reminded himself of those feelings again when the humanoid demons started coming to the island where he and Vera lived, pushing Blake to a position where he needed to be running away constantly lest he wanted to be bombarded by spells.

In those two cases, although Blake knew that he would most likely die or be half-dead if he had messed up, Blake also knew that he was still able to get out of that situation if he played his cards right.

It doesn’t have to be the case where he won the fight or anything, but just the thought of mind that he was able to not be helpless was a comfort in Blake’s mind.

However, in the case of the flying humanoid demons, Blake didn’t have that feeling or confidence that he would be able to get out of the situation.

The only thing that he could do was to gamble to try and save his life, and the gamble turned out to be his loss as he also overestimated himself and his body’s nether capacity.

No matter which approach he took, be it either trying to fight back and defeat the humanoid demons or running away to save his life, the flying humanoid demon was able to get above him in both approaches, rendering Blake completely helpless in the situation.

It had been a while since Blake felt that way, completely helpless in a situation. And it had rekindled his old feelings, reminding him of how he used to handle the problems and unfortunate events that came his way.

These certain feelings that had made his past memories resurface were not really an uncommon situation in Blake’s case. In fact, he had felt it several times before in his experience so far being a humanoid demon that could be considered to be a genius compared to the native humanoid demons.

However, this one was one of the most subtle, yet firm reminders to Blake that his past self was pathetic. Even though he didn’t blame it too much on himself but rather on the circumstances that he was in.

Just like seeing the native humanoid demons that didn’t have a single choice but to take the flying humanoid demon’s contract to chop trees or build ships unless they wanted to die, it was the same with him.

Either he swallowed whatever came his way and kept his head down to all the injustice that he had received or he would suffer a worse fate.

That was what he believed. And even now, he believed that without power, that would be his way of surviving, whether it was considered to be pathetic or not.

No matter how much he lamented and blamed his past self for doing what he had to do to survive, Blake knew that his past self must have done his best to survive, and he shouldn’t berate himself for it.

Blake walked a few steps forward, finally shifting his gaze from the scattered pile of bones to the soul orb that floated above them.

Extending his hand and grabbing it, Blake then put the soul inside his mouth.

He could taste the sweetness that the soul has, albeit it wasn’t that sweet. He still savored the sweetness for a while, not solely for the sweet taste, but also for other tastes that he couldn’t feel with his tongue, yet exist in his being.

As the tastes finally numbed after savoring them for so long, Blake then swallowed the soul.

As the soul went into his throat and arrived inside his body, Blake could finally taste the most savory-tasting soul that he had ever eaten in his life.

———–

Level:12 (114/125) (+10)

———–

If it was himself about two or three weeks ago, Blake would have fallen to the floor shaking due to how tasty the soul tasted to him.

And even though the taste of the soul of an evolved being, albeit being sealed was one of a kind taste that Blake could never forget, the lack of sweetness made Blake stand still in his place without overreacting to how overwhelmingly good the taste of the soul was.

Blake closed his eyes, savoring the taste of the soul as best as he could before he turned away from the remains of the bones, and headed back to where Cyra and Robus were without glancing back even for a second. He still had some things he wanted to do back in the humanoid demons’ base.

Even though Blake knew that he couldn’t change his past, Blake knew what he should do now. And that was to prevent whatever happened to him in the past from ever happening again to his current or future self.