Demon King: Hero, don’t run away!

Yang Yu lowered his head and thought for a long time before he hesitantly gave his answer:

”Is there some kind of invisible drive that compels them to fight each other?”

”A rather vague answer. Not exactly right, but not wrong either,” Owen smiled. ”There is indeed some kind of force driving them to battle one another. You could simply understand it as a desire for them to become stronger.

By killing an evenly matched or stronger opponent, they can become stronger themselves, so they do exactly that.

It’s similar to how, among humans, some people continually challenge opponents stronger than themselves to grow stronger.

Magic Beasts are different from ordinary creatures, after all.

What might be a fatal wound for an ordinary creature could only be a minor injury to a Magic Beast. A wound that would take ordinary creatures several months to heal might only take several days for a Magic Beast.

The obsession with becoming stronger far outweighs the pain inflicted by injuries, and even surpasses survival itself.”

Why are they so obsessed with becoming stronger, then?

Perhaps it was set that way from the very beginning...

Based on what he saw that day at the Biological Research Institute and what the Nine-Life Cat Demon said, Yang Yu could easily connect the dots.

”What is the purpose of those who make them progressively stronger?”

Owen placed a finger near his lips, making a gesture of silence. Clearly, this question also required additional victory points.

Though he couldn’t say much, Owen gave Yang Yu a hint:

”Why do you think a person would want something to become stronger?

The same goes for them.

There are sometimes more than one reason.

Magic Beasts in the past couldn’t be described as docile, even the herbivorous ones were violent and unmanageable.

If given the chance, they would even knock down other Magic Beasts and then devour the Magic Box, Demon Crystal, bones, and other parts most enchanted with magic power, growing even stronger as a result.”

”According to what you said, today’s Magic Beasts are quite different from those of the past,” Yang Yu tentatively asked.

”Of course. Life is full of surprises. Today’s Magic Beasts are closer to ordinary creatures.”

Owen snapped his fingers, and the paused scene resumed.

The crocodile-like Magic Beast and snake-like Magic Beast engaged in a fierce battle, ultimately delivering fatal blows to each other, both toppling like mountains, with no survivors among the beasts.

Only a famished cheetah remained, trembling in the grass.

The cheetah sniffed the wounds of the two beasts, as if repulsed by the stench, and sprinted three kilometers away.

After running three kilometers, it slowly walked back, seemingly struggling to endure the smell of the beasts, tore off a piece of flesh from one of the carcasses, and feasted on it.

It hadn’t eaten for a long time, and though these two Magic Beasts tasted foul, it didn’t want to miss the chance to fill its belly.

Owen snapped his fingers again, accelerating the flow of time in the space, as the cheetah came and went.

The meat of Magic Beasts seemed easier to digest than regular meat, and after just a few hours, the cheetah was hungry again. Having failed multiple hunts, it kept returning.

Perhaps realizing that the meat of the Magic Beasts gradually vanished with time, the cheetah decided to squat in place, turning into a feeding machine, devouring the corpses day and night.

At first, it avoided particularly unsavory spots, but eventually, it consumed those too.

After three days, the two Magic Beast carcasses were completely devoured, and the once-slim cheetah had transformed into the appearance of a five-hundred-kilogram brown bear, scales of snakes or crocodiles faintly emerging beneath its fur.

As it walked across the plains, it encountered a herd of deer and, using a skill it hadn’t possessed before, killed a deer.

It crouched down to feast, but after a few bites, it wasn’t hungry anymore, losing interest in the deer herd and instead seeking other Magic Beasts.

Yang Yu activated the System, and the beast, which previously didn’t display a panel, now had all its attributes listed before Yang Yu, not much inferior to the two Magic Beasts just having fought.

”Ordinary creatures have turned into Magic Beasts...”

”This Magic Beast later caused quite some trouble, and it took two S-Class adventure groups to barely deal with it.” Owen reminisced, then switched the scene.

A series of baffling images appeared before Yang Yu’s eyes.

There were Magic Beasts giving birth to ordinary creatures and raising them; ordinary creatures giving birth to Magic Beasts; ordinary creatures transforming into demons out of the blue...

Yang Yu had a stern expression, asking, ”Is this what you meant by, life is full of surprises?”

Owen didn’t directly answer the question: ”Back to Magic Deficiency.

Magic Deficiency doesn’t only occur in humans.

Animals can also suffer from Magic Deficiency, but unlike humans, who can survive with the aid of technology, once they contract the disease, the only road they face is death.

Those that survive are the individuals able to adapt to such environments, capable of spawning more offspring.

Now, the vast majority of ordinary creatures have found a balance between the magic within their bodies and the external magic.

But sometimes external factors or their own conditions can break the balance between their bodies and the outside world, causing them to turn into Magic Beasts.

However, turning into a Magic Beast is an exception; most creatures die once the magical balance within them is disrupted.

Just know that the boundary between these two kinds of creatures is not as clear-cut as we might imagine.

Try imagining, if a Magic Beast reverts to an ordinary creature and reproduces.

What do you think is the likelihood that their descendants, when their magic balance is broken, would turn into Magic Beasts?

Rare is sometimes just temporary.”

Hearing this, Yang Yu furrowed his brows, ”I’ve read in the All Things Library that every time the Demon King descends, there seems to be an explosive increase in Magic Beasts.

Some have said that the world’s magic levels are generally declining, only temporarily restored when the Gate of Demon World opens.

Just how many hidden Magic Beasts are there?”

Owen shook his head, ”The descent of the Demon King is harder to handle than you imagine, it’s a global catastrophe.”

Yang Yu fell silent, recalling how the Demon King had imprisoned the ancestors of the Star Eyes Clan for a long time and transformed them into Magic Beasts to battle Hero Lox.

”Has anyone ever transformed into a Magic Beast?”

Owen answered calmly, ”Yes. But transforming from a Subhuman into a Magic Beast is no easy feat.

Many have long adapted to eating Magic Beast meat, but they show little change themselves.

The components forming their lives are quite stable, almost never undergoing spontaneous mutation. Hence, there are so many diverse sub-human races in this world.”

”I roughly understand... What about the final type of creature?”

Owen responded without hesitation, ”They are entirely creatures made of magic. The components forming them are substantially stable, and even their offspring look the same.

The only thing that can change their appearance is the amount of magic they absorb during embryonic development and growth.

The stronger the magic surrounding them, the stronger they can grow.”

Yang Yu knew that the creatures Owen referred to were those like goblins, slimes... Magic Beasts commonly spoken of by people.