35 - Hell, Demons, and Ixtra's Life

"Life is full of sidetrips. You'll go on them whether you want to or not, so might as well enjoy them. Yeah, that's right.

Enjoy the sidetrips." - A certain irresponsible father from a certain popular anime.

Let's take a moment to go on a little sidetrip, shall we? A trip to the demon realm, Hell, to talk about demons, and about Ixtra.

To start, let's discuss one of the demons' signature abilities, the Release.

A demon would only obtain a 1st Release upon becoming a Greater Demon, but some demons obtained theirs' later. This wasn't a bad thing, but a good thing.

Usually, stronger demon bloodlines had stronger base forms, so their 1st Release forms tended to manifest in higher power tiers.

A demon's Release was considered a way for them to overcome the limitations of their bloodline and birth. It quite literally changed the demon's body at the fundamental level, allowing a qualitative change in strength and capability.

There were even cases where the demon switched species upon Release, although that usually happened with stronger demons.

Because it was a way to overcome limitations, you had to reach those limits first. Since the weakest demons were classified collectively as lesser demons, the minimum limit that had to be hit for such a case was the peak of power in the lesser demon power tier.

Thus, since a 1st release broke past limits by reconstructing the body, and the first limit that allowed for that was at the peak of the lesser demon level, the weakest 1st Release form was stronger than the peak of the lesser demon level. In other words, it had to be at the greater demon level. It could not be weaker.

To put it another way, the difference between a lesser demon and a greater demon was defined by the weakest 1st Release ever recorded by demonkind. Although there were stronger demons without a Release, there were no weaker demons with a Release.

The weakest 1st Release that defined the barrier of the lesser demon power tier was something from a long time ago, and it had stayed the weakest for a long time.

This might sound like an insult, but it's actually an observation. What were the odds that the weakest 1st Release of a demon in history just so happened to be almost exactly the same level of power as the barrier to the plasmic crystal mana stage?

We already know the power systems were made by the gods, so presumably, this implied the creators of the Class Blood system and the Demonic system of power had worked together to settle on the same level of power differential for both their systems, at least for that level.

Actually, it seemed the pattern was kept throughout, as I, in the early void magic stage, was about as strong as a weaker archdemon, according to Ixtra.

A demon general was just an archdemon who was in a demon king's army. Archdemon was the actual power tier. It was what came after greater demon.

If demon god corresponded to the same gods that made the power systems and the realms, than I guessed that there was probably one more stage after the void magic stage and before becoming a god, somehow or another, that corresponded to the level of a demon king in the Class Blood System.

That way, the entire progression through the two systems would have similar strength at each tier.

I wonder if the gods who made these systems were good friends or something. Maybe it was a game they played, or a bet. Who knew what gods did all day.

Archdemon was a power tier defined much like greater demon.

Instead of the 1st Release, demons could get a 2nd Release as well, once again changing their bodily makeup and becoming even stronger. The weakest 2nd Release known defines the barrier between greater demon and archdemon.

I wondered if demon kings had a 3rd Release, but Ixtra said they didn't, but he didn't know what defined a demon king as a power tier otherwise.

There were more Release forms possible, however, but they just weren't what made a demon king a demon king.

The limit of how many Release forms a demon could obtain wasn't known, but since it was merely a method of changing the physical form to make it stronger, there was a theory that the hypothetical max was infinite.

Of course, even among archdemons, most never went past 2. A 3rd Release was the highest Ixtra had ever heard about, and that was only among weaker demons. Most 3rd Release forms were only as strong as the strongest 2nd Release forms.

Of course, better to have a weak 3rd Release than an average 2nd Release.

It was somewhat comical, and pitiful, actually.

Strong demons would awaken a strong 2nd Release. Weak demons could, if they worked hard at it, awaken a weak 3rd Release that at least let them march up to strong 2nd Releases.

However, demons in the middle, neither strong nor weak for their level, would be stuck with no possibility for a 3rd Release at the archdemon level, and no strong 2nd Release either.

They were forced to stay middle of the pack by the power system. It was quite unfortunate for them.

Well, if you could make it to the archdemon level, there was little to pity.

It was equivalent to the void magic stage, which could traverse realms through the void and kill dragons with ease. Life was easygoings.

The only difference was demons lived longer than humans. Way longer. Even with the class blood in me, my current lifespan was barely shy of 200 years.

In comparison, a weak archdemon could live for a million years.

It really wasn't fair.

Well, hearing what Ixtra had gone through in Hell, maybe it was.

Hell was divided into 9 circles. As you went down, it got less and less civilized and more and more violent and awful.

Under the 9th circle, there was a space "upholding" Hell, as in upholding the entire dimension. Noone knew what it was upholding Hell from, but that was the phrase that was commonly used.

In the first 3 circles, societies still barely functioned. Especially the first circle, it wasn't even that bad there. Ixtra said it was basically paradise for demons. People got along, mostly, and it was just great.

However, going down the layers, that peacefulness gradually breaks down, and is replaced by savagery. The reason for this is something called "Law".

Laws are what make a universe function, and different Laws have different effects. As you go down further in Hell, the Law that allows for power among demons increases its effects.

The main reason there's peace in the 1st circle is that a demon can't eat and grow stronger there. Most demons just depend on the strength they were born with for their level of strength, and almost none of those bloodlines feature strength above the lesser demon level.

At lower circles, demons can devour each other for strength, and the power cap they can reach by doing so also increases.

At the 8th circle, all Hell breaks loose.

Get it? All Hell...ok, anyways.

The restriction on power is completely off, and archdemons are all over the place at the 8th and 9th circles, apparently. Ixtra also wasn't sure since he had never been down that far, but that's what the rumors said.

In comparison to those common archdemons, demon kings were almost nowhere to be seen. They had disappeared at some point around a thousand years ago, and only the new demon kings were around now, although there were records of the old ones.

Noone knew where they had disappeared to.

The new demon kings were much fewer than the amount there were before, although it was unknown if thay was due to a lack of accumulation over time, or a lack of talent in newer generations of demons.

Ixtra had grown up in the 7th circle. Who knew why a small imp boy would suddenly be in the 7th circle, but he was. Most imps lived in the 1st circle, carefree, peaceful, and happy.

From the moment he first opened his eyes, his first memory was of him in the 7th circle.

He had described the gruesome sights of his childhood to me in vivid detail.

Demons would slaughter and devour each other in droves, fighting and killing daily. Everywhere you went, there was a fight going on, and if you weren't at least somewhat strong, you could forget about your life.

Don't be mistaken by the presence of powerful demons on these layers. Most demons were pitifully weak.

The demons with power already would usually just hunt down masses of weaker demons to power up, instead of each other. They had long enough lives that they could afford to slowly get stronger like that. This made the weaker demons get culled nonstop, always staying weak.

There were only ever a few lucky exceptions.

There were very few archdemons in the 7th circle, but there were lots and lots of greater demons.

It was a greater demon's world, and Ixtra was just living in it.

The lesser demon power tier was one tier, but it encompassed everything from a small insect to an ogre that could bring down a house and more.

Every day, kill, eat, live, kill, eat, live. Noone had each other's backs, noone loved or cared for each other. To not be eaten or at least bullied by greater demons, the lesser demons had to eat each other, and their lives were on the line in every fight.

The number of times Ixtra had gotten away barely a breath away from death were too many to count.

It was truly Hell.

Ixtra was still one of the lucky ones. He managed to gain some power by pure chance and survive long enough to go up to a higher circle.

He had found an abandoned corpse of a greater demon, but he was too weak to devour the whole corpse. His frail body would explode from the energy.

In the end, he only managed to eat enough to get a little strong as a lesser demon, and he used that strength to slowly but surely accumulate strength over his life.

He never fought strong opponents, he always chose the coward's way out, and he survived. Eventually, he got to the 6th circle, and things got easier from there. He went up again to the 5th, and he had been staying there ever since, until I summoned him.

He said he had a little gang of weak lesser demons he was in charge of there.

I asked him if he missed them, but he said he didn't feel close to, trust, or miss anyone after what he had experienced growing up.

Indeed, how could he?

I asked him if he would miss me, and he fell silent then.

He never did answer. I spared him the difficulty of having to.

He couldn't gain much power very quickly on the 5th floor from where he was at, and the 5th floor also had its own rules.

In the end, he only obtained a little more power after many years, not being anywhere close to the greater demon level, and I summoned him.

He was actually quite glad I summoned him, though he didn't show it, but I could see it with the sincerity of his service.

A demon would keep a certain amount of power of Law when summoned outside the demon realm, almost always more than they might have at a given layer they are on at the time, except for the 9th circle.

Thus, getting summoned was the dream of many demons.

They wouldn't even die under normal circumstances, they'd usually just be automatically unsummoned when close to death, so it was extremely beneficial to get summoned, kill powerful opponents for your master, eat their flesh, grow in strength, and eventually return to Hell.

Some even disliked returning to Hell. Of course they did. It sucked. Of course, some were hegemons of an area, and so quite liked it there, compared to having to serve a master when summoned. There were people in both camps.

The only thing noone could argue about was that it was a great thing to be summoned by a strong master to kill strong opponents for him.

Even if they couldn't eat their flesh, demons obtained a special ability when summoned outside Hell, a skill in their bloodlines from the First Demon, [Soul Syphon].

Besides flesh and bodily parts, demons could devour souls directly, but only when summoned.

Summoning magic was also very weird.

It worked differently depending on the magic. Magic that teleported a being to a place did nothing else special, but summoning magic wasn't that. It "summoned" them, in a sense, but there were two different groups of summoning magic, and only one was called summoning magic.

There was no term for the other group because there weren't enough spells or skills in the group.

For instance, the 10th circle spell [Force Apport] would forcefully teleport something to a designated location, ignoring defenses below the 10th circle of magic or equivalent, but it wasn't a "summoning" spell.

You could make a large array with all sorts of components, and go through a lengthy process to bind a demon to the array, and use a [Forced Apport] enhanced by the array, all just to teleport the demon over to the array's position, and it would work.

But that wouldn't be "summoning magic".

In other words, basic teleportation and forced movement spells aren't "summoning" magic, regardless of how powerful they are. They are classified differently.

Anyways, that was a tangent on how summoning magic is weirdly labeled and works weirdly too. It gives extra effects to the summon, like a demon gaining [Soul Syphon].

Now, back to that very thing. A demon could use [Soul Syphon] to grow stronger even if their master didn't let them eat the corpse. In almost all cases below the void magic stage, the soul was something with no use for most people. The demon would almost always be allowed to eat it.

So, getting summoned was good.

On that note, Ixtra had also grown a lot stronger in the time he had been summoned. He didn't show it, but he was happy.

The fact that he had a 1st Release showed he was now a [Greater Demon].

This was also his limit.

He was just an imp. No matter what, imps were a weak species that essentially existed to look cute. And while he certainly fulfilled that role, he would be unable to reach the archdemon level in his lifetime.

Which, by the way, was now over 50,000 years.

Yeah, so not fair. Maybe if I took all his blood and injected it into my veins, I'd become a long lived imp...

Anyways, he was at a bottleneck.

Even eating beings at his own level of strength did nothing for him. I tried having him eat a dragon part, but...he couldn't even digest it, let alone grow stronger from it.

Same with the dragon soul.

So he was stuck. The only way to progress would be a 2nd Release, but a Release was easier said than done.

It wasn't just an accumulation of power, but a sublimation of power that results in a drastic change in form.

That's a fancy way of saying it isn't as easy as it looks.

And a 2nd Release only gets exponentially harder.

Archdemons might be commonplace in the 8th circle of Hell, but make no mistake that it is a significant achievement.

Out of 100 demons that reach the greater demon level, maybe 1 will have the talent to become an archdemon, and maybe 1 in several hundred actually will.

The numbers are not looking good for Ixtra.

If there is one positive to focus on, it's that Release forms exist precisely for this reason. So that when a demon reaches the limit of their bloodline, they can tranform into something stronger.

Ixtra had been trying for multiple years now by my side to make some semblance of progress, but it had been all for naught.

However, he wasn't discouraged. He had amazing persistence and discipline.

Makes sense though. The guy doesn't look it, but he's hundreds of years old.

I thought about summoning a stronger demon, but sentimentality aside, I also don't really need it.

After all, my current issue was not lacking strength or a subordinate, but rather...

This damn warp drive.