The continent of Jin was vast, with various races living in its lands. Its total size was several times that of the total area of Earth.

The Beast Woods was actually an enormous span of forest located in the west of the continent, covering about twenty-five per cent of its area. It was one of the most dangerous places in the continent, covered with all manners of demons and onis. Deep into the woods, it was possible to find even tyrant and nightmare class demons and onis, whose strength was equal to mage kings and emperors!

At the centre of the continent sat the Holy Kingdom, which was also the land of the humans. It was a huge kingdom covering a fifth of the continent. Numerous villages, towns, and cities, all made up the Holy Kingdom. There were various sects, families, and organisations, which held the power and ruled the Kingdom.

At the centre of the Holy Kingdom was the Holy Capital, where many of the most powerful human sects and organisations were located. This included the headquarters of the Church of Iva which was the most powerful organisation of the Holy Kingdom after only their royal family, the Myriad Sword Palace where Sion Hart was from, and also a dark organisation called the Hidden Venom Cult.

The Hidden Venom Cult was a powerful mortal organisation composed of dark mages, ruled by thirteen apostles who were all in the mage emperor realm! Damon Rogue was a member of this Hidden Venom Cult. Specifically, he was a trusted aide to one of the thirteen apostles of the Hidden Venom Cult.

However, Damon had a falling out with the cult and was exiled. It was also during that falling out when he was injured and prevented from being able to use his full strength. Hence, he was working on a way to heal his injury and increase his strength so that he could return to the cult once more.

However, the mage king realm was already the maximum that he could reach with his three-core aptitude. If he wanted to progress further, he needed to form more mana cores, a feat easier said than done!

Damon became obsessed with finding a way to form new mana cores, and in that journey came across a method to form mana cores for someone who was not a mage. This was what he used for Henry; however, it was useless for him.

Finally, he did come across one method to form new mana cores that he thought could actually work. That was the soul harvester.

Human souls were, in a sense, a dense conglomeration of mana. Although different mana repelled each other, the mana that was making up souls did not repel any mana. Hence, he discovered an ancient method that harvested human souls, extracted their mana, and absorbed it into the inner realm.

Since this special mana wasn’t repelled by other types of mana, his existing mana cores would not repel it either. Hence, the mana harvested from human souls could enter his inner realm, where he can use it to condense a new mana core.

However, a mage could use this method to form additional mana cores only once in their life. Furthermore, due to the inefficiency of the method, and the large amount of mana needed to form a core, a large number of sacrifices would be needed to execute this method.

Hence the reason why Damon was attacking the villages.

The three villages were located to the northwest of the Holy Kingdom, near the border of the Beast Woods. Since it was so far from the Holy Kingdom, he figured that not only would the humans here be weaker, but there would also be less interference from the Kingdom.

However, due to his injuries, it was not easy for him to attack all three villages himself. Additionally, even if he did that, the Kingdom would definitely investigate what happened to the villages and would eventually discover him, at which point he’d have to go on the run.

Hence, he decided to use the demons and onis to invade the villages and mask his movements. He hoped that this way, not only would it be easier to destroy the villages, but even if the villages were later investigated, it would be concluded that they were the victims of a particularly harsh demon tide.

That was his perfect plan. The plan which Damon worked tirelessly to execute and finally came to completion.

However, all of his preparation and all of his hard work, was about to be ruined by one woman.

Myra Wan!

How!? How did she even find out about the soul harvester? For that matter, how did she figure out the method to control demons, or figure out Damon’s injuries and weakness? How did she know everything?

Was there a spy? Damon warily looked at the dark mages around him, however, they were both still staring at the pseudo-commander class demons with fear.

Seeing Damon scrutinise his companions so strongly, Myra laughed, guessing what he was thinking.

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“Don’t worry, there are no spies among you,” she said.

Of course, Damon wasn’t going to believe anything she said. However, it was also not possible for there to be a spy, unless…

A vague possibility arose in his mind, but he couldn’t believe it.

The dark mages had sent spies into the villages by using Astoria and the elf to host parasitic spirits. As a result, they could silently see and hear anything observed by the host on the other side, without them realising it.

Could it be… could Myra have found a way to reverse that connection? If so, then she could have directly seen and heard everything about the dark mages!

Reversing the connection was not easy, but if anyone could do it, Myra, who was at the peak of the grand mage realm, could.

Damon had actually hit the nail on the head.

This was exactly what Myra had done. Myra had also been stuck at the grand mage realm for centuries and was desperate to find any method she could to break through. She had tried every method she could get her hands on, but the only thing she didn’t try was the dark path.

Hence, when she found out that the dark mages had used a parasitic spirit to control Sam, she was delighted to help. She wanted to take the spirit to try to study and understand more about the dark path.

Her efforts were not wasted. Because when the lone elf ‘survived’ and returned from the expedition, with her peak grand mage cultivation, she immediately detected that something was off about the elf. Using her research of the parasitic spirit over the past, along with all the knowledge she had accumulated over her lifetime, she found a way to reverse the spirit so that she could become the observer instead!

Hence, she found out everything about the dark mages, their plans, the methods they used to control demons, and of course, the mage king’s weakness.

Damon sighed… he should have seen this coming. Trying to use magic covertly against a powerful and wise elf was his mistake.

Damon observed the pseudo commander class demons, the demon army, and Myra Wan, and sighed.

“I can’t give you the soul harvester. Ask anything else, but not that,” Damon replied.

“Oh, not even if I say please?” Myra laughed.

Damon was furious, but he calmed himself.

“No.”

“But why so selfish? I know you have enough souls to form two mana cores, surely you could share one with me?” she asked with a smile again.

“You! How did you know that!” Damon asked, even though he knew the answer to that.

Myra ignored his question and just kept smiling at him.

Damon sighed loudly and looked up at the skies.

‘All my years of hard work and planning, I have to share it with this bitch!?’

Fate was so cruel.

However, he didn’t have a choice and he knew it.

Damon pulled something out of his pocket. Myra’s eyes gleamed as she observed keenly.

It was a golden device that emitted brilliant white light. Given what it was capable of, its size was unimpressive, no more than twenty centimetres.

The soul harvester was shaped like an arch, at the top of which was a shining golden crystal. The bottom of the crystal was connected to something like a tube, which flowed downwards and split in two, each connecting to a small, white, glowing sphere. Myra could feel an extraordinary amount of mana condensed into those two spheres.

They must be the mana extracted from the souls!

Damon took out a jade container and placed one of the glowing white spheres into it. Then, he packed the whole soul harvester away in the same way he took it out, before holding out the sealed glowing white sphere before Myra.

“This is what you want?” he asked.

“But of course!” she exclaimed. “Just toss it over to me and I’ll be on my merry way.”

“Humph. If you want something like this, shouldn’t you offer more in exchange?” Damon scoffed.

Myra tilted her head in confusion.

“Are your lives not enough?”

“Even you are not so arrogant that you cannot see the big picture here, right?” Damon asked.

Myra frowned.

“If I go all out, I could annihilate most of your army. Although I would be weak afterwards, you would end up having to fight the rest of my subordinates. That wouldn’t be an easy task even for you, no matter what aces you have up your sleeve.”

Myra frowned deeply and kissed her teeth.

“Tch. What do you want?”

“Your army. Give them all to me.”

Myra sucked in a deep breath. It had taken her years to build this army, how could she let it go so easily?

“If I give them to you, how do I know you won’t kill me the next second?”

“Well, I am a man of my word,” Damon said cheekily but then changed to a serious expression.

“This container has a sealing rune which will explode within thirty minutes. You can take this and run. Once you reach a place that you think is safe, you can contact me with this spirit and I will tell you the method to undo the seal. Then you can hand over control of the army to me,” Damon said, summoning a small, worm-like spirit.

Myra quickly examined the spirit and saw that it was a harmless spirit only used for medium to long-distance communication.

“Humph, how do I know you will actually tell me the correct method to undo the seal?” she asked.

“Because, if I lie, you can then command your army to attack me. I would have just lost all of the harvested souls for nothing. The only thing I will get is you as an enemy. We have no deep grudges, and I am not a spiteful person.”

Myra observed him, trying to find even a trace of a lie. However, he looked extremely sincere.

Realising that there was no choice, Myra agreed to the deal.

“Okay.”

Damon smiled and threw the container to Myra. Myra caught it and dashed off into the distance. Her army still surrounded the dark mages, making them unable to move. After about twenty minutes, Myra reached a secret location and contacted the dark mage with the spirit.

“I will transfer control of the army to you now, and you give me the method to undo the seal.”

Damon nodded, “Okay.”

They both kept up their end of the bargain, and Myra managed to undo the seal.

She held the container in her hand and couldn’t stop laughing.

“Ha… ha… hahahahahah! The greatest winner of this war is me! With this, I can finally enter the mage king realm!”

Meanwhile, Damon had a gloomy look on his face. He didn’t expect half of his hard work to suddenly be taken away like this. However, at least he had a new army now, so he could use it to raid some more villages and get back the other core too.

Thinking so, he tried to calm himself as the dark mages also comforted him.

“Don’t worry master, we’ll get the bitch back someday!”

Damon sighed, but he swore in his heart that he will.

However, just as the group were sighing in relief, they all felt a huge aura.

Mage king!