My Living Shadow System Devours To Make Me Stronger

Damon swallowed hard… Valarie seemed to know… this mugu was actually someone who had led to the unknown god’s presence… in their world.

The pair of lips opened, but no words came…

“Hmm… why… I…”

Valarie stopped. “Hmm… it seems I can’t remember…”

Damon narrowed his eyes. “Are you catfishing us? Baiting us with bits and pieces? This better not be a trick…”

Valarie’s lips, on his shoulder, remained close.

“No… it’s not. I have been sealed for so long, and I am technically just a discarnate… soul…”

The lips were all she was. However, as if glancing at Sylvia, she continued.

“Mugu was young and ambitious. Eager even… However, what broke him was time… Perhaps it’s better to say the world moved on without him. His reason for living became pointless… he became unneeded… forgotten.*”

Damon narrowed his eyes. He became unneeded… Damon knew what it was like—to need to be needed, to believe you were important to someone.

After all, he was that way as well. He wanted to be needed by his sister, Luna. He wanted to be her hero. He wanted…

It was the only reason he lived… for her.

Did Mugu have such a reason? Some reason to be needed…?

Sylvia looked at Damon. He probably didn’t know the face he was making…

Valarie seemed to be observing him as well.

“Your expression… it almost reminds me of him. Driven. Stubborn. I hope you share a different fate… That stubbornness was something he shared with the City Lord…”

Damon narrowed his eyes. He was wearing the Ascendant Armor that had belonged to the City Lord—Pale Crown.

The pair of lips smiled.

“Well, worry not… it’s not likely for you to end up like Mugu. Youths from the Doom Continent have always been troublemakers…”

Leona furrowed her brow.

“You keep talking about this Doom Continent, but there is no Doom Continent…”

Damon nodded, agreeing with Leona. However, he already knew the answer.

Valarie’s lips opened and closed.

“Did one of the nine continents get destroyed? Isn’t there a rule against blowing up continents…?”

Evangeline looked at the pair of lips on Damon’s shoulder with a deadpan expression.

‘Yet she remembers that…’

Sylvia shook her head… she decided to explain to Valarie, who had been dead for many centuries and was still technically dead.

“There are nine continents, which are… Soltheon, the War Continent… which we are on right now…”

Damon sighed. “Let’s get moving. I feel like this might take all day…”

Valarie agreed. However, she seemed more interested in what Sylvia had to say.

Damon decided to interfere to save time.

“On the west would be Solarion, the Sun Continent… to the east would be Lorvas.”

Matia, who had been quiet, spoke up.

“Up north would be Norrath, the Frost Continent. My homeland…”

They walked towards the cathedral doors.

They proceeded to give her a rundown of the rest of the continents: Lothria, the Wild Continent to the south. Floating above the sea with countless floating landmasses was Vuldren, the Sky Continent in the northeast—the home of magic and innovation.

Aerona, the Magic Continent, in the southeast.

Far to the southwest was the eighth continent, Tyrvelia—the Voyage Continent… which was now technically a large archipelago.

Valarie listened until the last part.

“Then Centros—the Doom Continent, at the very center of the world…”

Sylvia shook her head.

“That was in the past. The name of the continent has changed. It’s now called the Demon Continent—a name given to it, supposedly, by the Demon Lord Ashcroft.”

Valarie’s lips pressed together.

“Ashcroft? Who’s that? What gave him the authority to rename a continent named by the old deities of our world… and aren’t demons a myth…?”

Xander narrowed his eyes, hoisting his spear over his shoulder.

“The only deity is the Goddess… and now the Unknown God…”

Damon raised his head at her words. Demons were a myth…

He pushed the cathedral door warily, as if expecting something to attack them the moment they stepped out.

Still, Sylvia’s burning curiosity surpassed the dread of what may be lurking on the streets of Lysithara.

“Demons are real. Why did you say they were myths…?”

Valarie’s lips were quiet on Damon’s shoulder, as if taking in the ruins that were once her home—the city that was foremost in greatness, knowledge, magic, science, innovation… now just despair.

“We failed…” she seemed to be muttering to herself.

The lips moved. “We failed. That’s why demons are real now…”

Damon narrowed his eyes.

“Lysithara was a place of knowledge. We thought we knew better. After the Goddess took away people’s True Names and only allowed people to be born with a single attribute…”

The others narrowed their eyes… that was news to them. They had no idea the Goddess had anything to do with names or attributes.

Xander pulled off his helm.

“What are you on about? People always had a single magic attribute. And what even is a True Name? Names are given to us by our parents at birth…”

Damon sighed. He was also surprised when he first found out that people used to be able to use multiple attributes of magic. But the part about True Names was news to him as well.

Valarie’s lips pressed together.

“I can’t be sure… it’s just speculation… an old wives’ tale. We used to be taught, apparently… in the past—the Zero Epoch, or the Epoch of Beginning—people had True Names and multiple attributes. But the Goddess changed it…”

Damon listened quietly as Valarie spoke of some long past…

“Lysithara was founded by sages to seek the truth. The city was created towards the end of the Zero Epoch. By the First Epoch, it was the most advanced place in the world—a hotbed of learning where people from everywhere came… but we got arrogant. The Goddess… she had a reason…”

Her voice seemed frustrated.

“Our hubris brought it all crashing down… we shouldn’t have sought it. We shouldn’t have opened the doors… and we shouldn’t have let them in or even trusted them….we got greed for more…”

“Who?” Damon asked.

“The visitors… Opening the gates to the—”

Before she finished, a bone arrow streaked past Damon’s face. He dodged, looking up with a cold gleam in his eyes…

He would have died if not for his Danger Sense skill…

Raising his head, he found a monster—a skeleton holding a bow in its hand, with pieces of fabric still clinging to its rotting frame…

“Undead,” Valarie muttered.