Chapter 5

Looking at the stone mortar and the mud in front of him, Olsaga opened his palm.

Since this was a bloodline awakening spell, there was no need to chant incantations or make any preparations. A blood-red fireball, about fifteen centimeters in diameter and emitting high heat, instantly formed and floated between his palms, illuminating everything in the cave.

Whoosh!

Following his thoughts, the fireball automatically shot out, striking the obstacle blocking the cave entrance.

Boom!!

A sound like a bomb explosion echoed through the cave, and the blood-red flames splashed everywhere.

After Olsaga withdrew his magic and extinguished the flames, what met his eyes was a large hole about three to four meters deep. Based on his memory of blocking the cave, one more shot should be enough to penetrate all the obstacles and clear the passage.

So he condensed another fireball, which was about the same size and temperature as the previous one. The difference was that he did not use the Fireball spell but compressed the blood flame into a spherical shape using his mental power.

Boom!!

Another explosion sounded. After the fire was extinguished, Olsaga began to observe the results of this round.

The depth was about two meters, and there was still a little of the obstacle left, but not much!

However, he did not rush to act. Instead, he estimated the power and consumption of using the Fireball spell versus compressing the blood flame directly into a ball.

Without using the Fireball spell, the power was about half, but the consumption was about four times greater, making it nearly eight times the difference.

Next, he found a place to experiment with the other spells and the new talent he had obtained, giving him a general idea of his current strength.

After sitting on the messy ground and recovering the magic and physical strength consumed by the experiments, he licked his lips, stood up with a smile, and walked towards other parts of the forest.

The next step was to investigate where he stood in the food chain of the Wailing Forest...

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The demon, who looked like a wolfman with an outer shell, felt his life being drained. The frustration in his heart made him muster the strength to make a final struggle.

But Olsaga, who had sensed his intention, would not let him have his way.

With a weak hiss,

Olsaga's tail, which had already pierced through his chest and lifted him high, stirred forcefully with the high temperature of the blood flame, burning his internal organs to a medium-rare state and scattering them.

This instantly killed him!

The demon's rank was [Lesser Demon], slightly stronger than the previous ape demon.

However, unlike before, Olsaga's strength had undergone a qualitative transformation. An opponent who would have required a fierce battle to defeat now had no combat value at all!

From start to finish, Olsaga did not even use his hands. A single instant bloodline spell [Soul Impact] left the demon in a daze, and then his tail pierced through the demon's chest, draining his life force and leaving him in a weakened state, hanging like dried meat.

Tearing off an arm from the corpse, Olsaga's mouth, which was about the same size as a normal human's, split open to near his ears, revealing a row of sharp teeth. He then took a fierce bite out of the meat in his hand, tearing off a large piece.

He walked around, eating the snack as he went...

The corpse hanging from his tail had already been drained dry and was casually thrown into the grass to feed the flowers. After all, whether as a demon or a human, one should take care of the environment!

Since leaving the cave, he had wandered for a while, encountering over a dozen [Lesser Demons], seven or eight [Young Demons], and hundreds of mutated creatures native to the Wailing Forest.

The ancestors of these mutated creatures, unlike the demons that were native to this place, mostly came from other planes and eventually stayed here for various reasons.

Their descendants absorbed the magic of the Abyss, drank the water of the Abyss, ate the plants and flesh of the Abyss, and were tainted by the Abyss, becoming bloodthirsty and evil regardless of their original nature.

The mutated creatures in the Wailing Forest varied in strength, with the strongest being at the [Lesser Demon] level and the weakest being slightly weaker than [Young Demons]. However, they mostly shared a common trait: good reproductive ability, or they would have been exterminated by the endless demons long ago!

After wandering around the Wailing Forest for half a day, Olsaga did not encounter any demons, mutated creatures, or even mutated plants that reached the [Lesser Demon] level.

This left him unable to test his strength against a [Lesser Demon].

Calmly crossing the stone mortar, his tail quickly stabbed behind him, ignoring the demon's environmental optical camouflage ability, and hit the vital point with extreme precision, piercing through the brain of the mutated creature hiding in the stone mortar and killing it.

For Olsaga, who possessed the energy vision ability, any invisibility skill was meaningless unless it exceeded his detection range and was immune to the effects of energy vision. It was better to use the basic Fireball spell, at least for the fireworks.

[+77 Evolution Points]

Lifting his head, he looked at the sky, which was already mostly dark, and frowned, somewhat dissatisfied.

'Too slow!'

Compared to the riverbank, where demons fought wildly face-to-face, all he had to do was kill any creature that came into view.

He could unleash the purest violence and slaughter.

The Wailing Forest was more like a vast hunting ground, where the dangers were more hidden.

The sky, trees, ground, grass, and underground all concealed lurking hunters, ready to strike at any moment. A single step in the mud could hide several venomous insects that could corrode bones, and even a flower could release toxins to paralyze prey and then strangle it with tentacles.

In a sense, the two environments had completely different characteristics. One trained demons in direct combat, while the other honed their cunning and viciousness, turning them into mature hunters capable of killing prey in various complex environments and conditions.

In terms of practical effects, this was a gradual approach that was very beneficial for the growth of demons, allowing them to be more adept in external invasions and internal conflicts.

However, for Olsaga, there was a small problem. For him, who could grow by constant fighting and needed only evolution points to compensate for his weaknesses, the creatures in the Wailing Forest, hiding and fighting individually, were like guerrillas moving around and hiding.

It was very inconvenient to find them!

He could hardly find many prey after searching for a long time, unable to slaughter like on the riverbank. He could only play hide-and-seek, greatly extending his growth time.

Olsaga had considered setting a forest fire for a grand jungle barbecue, but after some attempts, he abandoned the idea.

His blood flame could burn the surrounding plants, but these plants, being mutated, had their own magic and could resist burning to some extent. While he could burn them with a continuous supply of magic, they would quickly extinguish once the magic stopped, making it impossible to spread into a forest fire.

Another issue was that even if he burned the demons, Olsaga would still need to find their souls one by one, which was absurd. By the time he reached them, the souls might already have been claimed by others.

This exposed a shortcoming: he lacked the ability to collect souls on a large scale from a distance. While he could burn the souls and make them eternally silent, he did not have the ability to harvest them remotely, only being able to bind them one by one with his magic and soul power.

According to the memories he inherited, regular demons needed at least [Lesser Demon] strength to harvest souls from a distance, and the target could not be too strong, or they would resist strongly.

As for how to harvest the souls of stronger beings, demons generally used three methods: 1. Kill them directly, 2. Trick them into signing a contract and then harvest the soul using the contract's power, 3. Pollute them with their own power, and once they became puppets, they could be harvested.

Now, Olsaga had two choices, two development paths.

One was to respond to summoning attempts from the outside world using the power of the Abyssal contract, then use the Abyssal power to travel to another world and try to take advantage before being expelled.

The biggest problem with this option was that he had no idea who was summoning him or what the situation was.

If he was immediately trapped in a magic circle and saw several wizards smiling with research tools, it would be very awkward!

Every day, many demons made a fortune through interdimensional summoning, but many others were caught and became rare materials of the Abyss.

It was a risky business, and Olsaga did not want to try it without some assurance!

The other option was to stay in the Wailing Forest, which was slower but still yielded results. The strongest opponents were at the [Lesser Demon] level, and Olsaga felt that even if he could not defeat them, he could escape. As long as he was not surrounded by a large group of demons, there should be no fatal danger.

After three seconds of deep thought, Olsaga made a brave choice.

He decided to stay in the Wailing Abyss for now. Jumping around recklessly and getting killed was not a good idea!

While the demon's nature made him crave slaughter and destruction in other planes, his human memories told him to use his brain and not take unnecessary risks.