Chapter 294: The Tale of the Heavenly Demon

The Heavenly Demon stared out at the endless green plains, his red eyes reflecting a deep, ancient sorrow. "Just like everyone, I awakened my innate talent when I was exactly fifteen years old. It was an SSS-rank ability simply called ’10,000x Multiplier’."

Solomon raised an eyebrow. "That sounds incredibly overpowered, and surprisingly simple to understand. Unlike my Convergence talent, which I could not even figure out because there was no safe way to test it. I probably never would have learned anything about it if my own ’recklessness’ had not forced me into a situation that finally triggered it."

The Heavenly Demon let out a bitter, humorless laugh. "Sometimes, possessing power is not a blessing. It is a crushing, inescapable curse."

Before Solomon could ask for clarification, the fallen king continued. "The talent functioned exactly as the name implied. Everything I did was instantly multiplied by ten thousand. If I threw a basic punch, the force was magnified ten thousand times. If I swung a wooden sword, the resulting strike carried the destructive output of an army. If I yelled, the soundwaves were amplified ten thousand times over."

He turned his head, a nostalgic, painful smile touching his lips. "At first, everything was wonderful. I was loved and revered by my people. I was undeniably the strongest warrior in the entire kingdom, simply because even with the bare minimum of physical effort, my results were always ten thousand times greater than anyone else’s. Then, one day, my secondary Azure bloodline talent ’Devour’ finally awakened. And my entire world fell apart."

The Heavenly Demon closed his eyes. "Since ’Devour’ is a passive ability designed to absorb ambient aura from the atmosphere, that absorption rate was also instantly multiplied by ten thousand. My body became an inescapable, spiritual black hole. I would violently suck up all the surrounding aura wherever I walked."

"It was barely manageable at the start. I was growing exponentially stronger, and the nobles and royals of the kingdom celebrated my ascension, believing I would lead them to an era of unrivaled prosperity."

He clenched his fists, the memory clearly agonizing. "But the bloodline talent kept growing stronger without me even realizing the true cost. My body did not just absorb the ambient aura from the environment anymore. It began to forcefully rip the aura directly from the people standing around me. And it did not just stop at aura."

"The talent began devouring their vitality and their life force. No one realized what was actually happening, not even me, until my closest aides and personal servants suddenly grew deathly ill and inevitably died right in front of me."

Solomon felt a cold chill run down his spine, realizing the horrific implications of the combined talents.

"The absorption became so terrifyingly powerful that absolutely no one could step foot inside the main palace without collapsing," the Heavenly Demon whispered. "So, my own family sent me away. They exiled me to a remote, fortified castle where there were no other living beings. As the years passed, the talent grew even stronger. By then, I had become so powerful that I could drain the entire life force from a neighboring kingdom simply by stepping across its borders."

He looked down at his own hands, his red eyes filled with pure self-hatred. "My touch... had become death. Every single living being I touched would wither and die instantly. I did not even need to wield a weapon or engage in combat. I could just brush against them, and they would perish. And even if I kept my distance, they would still die eventually, their vitality slowly leached away by my mere presence."

The fallen king looked up at Solomon. "And that is exactly how I was branded with the title of the Heavenly Demon."

Solomon sat in the grass, utterly speechless after hearing the tragic, horrifying reality of the legend.

"Could you not just learn to control it?" Solomon asked softly. "If you mastered your internal circulation, wouldn’t that have stopped the absorption? And how could your body just keep absorbing infinite energy? Your cores and spiritual reservoirs must have eventually hit their maximum capacity."

The Heavenly Demon looked at Solomon with a hollow, solemn stare. "My entire body had become pure, volatile energy. My heart, my lungs, and every single internal organ had mutated into spiritual mass just to contain the influx. My original aura cores had long since shattered and been destroyed by the overwhelming pressure."

"Normally, shattered cores result in immediate death. But because the Devour talent constantly flooded my system with fresh vitality, my body simply forced itself to exist in a paradoxical state where I no longer required physical cores to survive. I was only kept alive by the very curse that was killing everyone else."

He let out a long, shuddering breath. "I was a dead man walking, yet I was more alive than anyone in existence. I had become death, but I was entirely incapable of dying. I had become so incredibly weak and isolated, yet the world feared me as the strongest. I possessed the power to conquer the heavens, but I could not even hold the followers to give to the woman I loved without it turning to ash. My supreme strength was my weakness."

Solomon stared at the grass, connecting the final, tragic pieces of the puzzle.

"So, to stop you from unintentionally killing everyone, they sealed you inside that secret, indestructible chamber," Solomon concluded quietly, completing the story.

"And the entire Azure Kingdom was intentionally left abandoned, creating a massive quarantine zone so no one could ever get close enough to be devoured. And once the spiritual energy from the atmosphere finally ran out, because your body kept devouring the limited supply... over the decades, you slowly withered away and died inside that pitch-black tomb, sitting completely alone on your throne, stepping on the crown that cursed you."

Solomon looked up. "Which also perfectly explains the geographical phenomenon and the terrifying lore behind the Whispering Wilds. The mutated beasts and the spatial distortions were intentionally cultivated to keep everyone far away from the ruins."

The Heavenly Demon looked at Solomon with incredibly sad, tired eyes. He did not say a single word in response.

He didn’t need to.

Solomon recalled the suffocating, pitch-black darkness of the secret chamber. ’He was locked inside that tomb while he was still alive,’ Solomon thought, a profound sense of horror washing over him. ’He was probably trapped down there for decades, maybe even centuries, slowly starving to death in total isolation. It was an impossibly cruel fate for someone who never wished to live a life like that, or die like that.’