Rise of The Demon General

"How do you control these roaches?"

Dao Su grinned. He whistled. One of the work roaches came to his side. Amon observed the work roach, and he noticed this one was different from the rest. While almost every work roach was different, because Dao Su had altered each of them, Amon found this one different because it seemed to be in its original state. One could perceive if a creature had been altered because the altered body parts were alien to the rest of the body. This one didn’t possess that kind of anomaly. It was also slightly larger.

"This is my tamed beast," Dao Su explained. "A queen roach. It can impose its will on the others of its brood. This is how I control the other work roaches I have altered."

Amon thought about his upcoming mission. The Cryanids were insect-type spirit beasts, similar to these work roaches. He wondered if someone was controlling the Cryanids using the same trick.

"Anyway, I have been honing my skills to improve the success rate of all the operations I conducted," Dao Su said. "That’s why I keep experimenting. My dream, like the dream of all respectable Flesh Alterers, is to achieve a total alteration of the body."

"Full body alteration?" Amon asked.

"Full body alteration," Dao Su nodded. "It is replacing most of the organs with the organic parts from other creatures. The remaining organs from the original recipient will only be the brain and the most vital inner organs. In terms of appearance, it will be completely different from its original look. This was something that had never been achieved before... Or at least, it is believed to be so."

"You don’t believe so?" Amon asked after hearing Dao Su’s tone.

"It is never confirmed, but I have come across multiple loose tomes left behind by Flesh Alterers from the past. Some of them mentioned a legendary Flesh Alterer who succeeded in achieving a full-body alteration."

"If that was true, wouldn’t the accomplishment have garnered more attention? How could it be lost to time and only become hearsay?"

Dao Su shrugged. "As I said, the information I found about this legendary Flesh Alterer cannot be substantiated. Even the information accounts for vastly different eras despite seemingly referring to the same person. One account dates back as far as fifty millennia ago. Another says the achievement is only one millennium ago."

"From your tone, I figure you believe such a person did exist in the past?"

"I do," Dao Su nodded. "Though I have to piece the information together from multiple sources, I do think the method described about how this person achieved the full-body transformation is very feasible."

"Really? What is the method?"

"By altering the recipient while it is still in the womb."

Dao Su waited for Amon to show an expression of awe, but Amon’s face remained cold. Amon waited patiently for Dao Su to elaborate.

"Tch," Dao Su uttered disappointedly. "The tomes described that the legendary Flesh Alterer procured the inherent characteristics of the donor and forcefully inserted them into the still-forming fetus of the recipient inside the womb."

’Gene splicing,’ Amon thought.

"Well, I guess for a layman, this doesn’t sound like much. But believe me, this is a monumental feat that, to this day, still cannot be replicated. Of course, the loose information about the legendary Flesh Alterer mentioned that he left mountains of corpses. The number of stillborns resulting from his experiment was catastrophic, so much so that one tale said that he was hunted by the masses for his atrocity. Even in this realm, there are limits one shouldn’t cross."

"Not you, I presume?"

"Hehe. I don’t see you as someone who is bothered by moral ethics. How about this? You help provide me with the materials I need for my experiment, and I will help you with whatever you want in return."

"I assume these materials involve fertile women?"

"Hehe. I’m happy when I converse with a smart person."

"I will think about it," Amon replied. "Anyway, we haven’t had the chance to talk freely like this. Tell me what exactly Hai Di was confining you and Zee Whang for?"

Dao Su paused for a bit. Amon could see that he was pondering whether he should answer the question. He didn’t ponder long. He answered, "He wanted to bolster his force using artificial soldiers that obey only him."

"How so?" Amon asked.

"My task is to build the most efficient beasts by combining them from multiple parts."

"How is that so different than what you have been doing?"

"The difference is that I built it from scratch, and from corpses. I fuse these different parts, picking the ones that are most efficient for combat, and stitch them together."

"From corpses? So, it is never alive to begin with?"

"Yes. This is different from transplanting body parts to a living recipient. This is building a monster from the ground up."

"What good is building a dead Frankenstein monster for?"

"Fran, what?"

"Never mind that. What good is building a dead creature for?"

"By making it not dead. A life can be injected into the subject by using the Soul Imprint."

Amon looked at his left arm upon hearing that. The shadow of Bo Wu’s grinning face flashed along the tattoos.

"Soul Imprint is a practice that has only been discovered not that long ago, around fifty thousand years ago, give or take. It was a byproduct of an experiment by a Flesh Alterer who tried to achieve full-body alteration, but using a method different from the one I mentioned previously. The Flesh Alterer happened to also be a formation sage and an engraver. Instead of transplanting new body parts into the recipient, he used his combined expertise to transplant the soul of a living person into a new body. However, this method resulted in almost a hundred percent failure rate. The one who succeeded ended up with a broken mind. It could not be reasoned with nor interacted with. Some became utterly violent, and the others were no different from vegetative victims."

Amon spoke to his left arm. "Do you also have a broken mind?"

Bo Wu’s shadow emerged from the arm. "How can you say so? Have you ever found our interaction to make no sense? My mind is perfectly fine, hehehe!"

"Your laughter doesn’t sound fine," Amon remarked.

"The hell beast is one of the few who can survive soul imprint without becoming insane. Perhaps because their mental state is already unbalanced to begin with."

"Hey! Who do you call has a mental problem?!" Bo Wu snapped at Dao Su. Its shadow incarnation extended in a show to grab Dao Su.

Amon pulled his arm back. Bo Wu’s shadow suddenly became rigid. It was as if something had frozen him. It looked back at Amon with surprised eyes.

Amon grinned. "You truly think I let you live in my body for so long without training my mind to get you under control? Get back inside!"

As if getting sucked, Bo Wu shot back into Amon’s arm, returning to its tattoo’s state.

"You... How do you do this?!" Bo Wu asked. It sounded alarmed.

Amon didn’t bother explaining to it. He returned his attention to Dao Su. "So, Hai Di wanted you to create a bunch of abominations and then implant souls into them using the hell beast souls?"

Dao Su shook his head. "Though hell beasts were among those who can survive soul imprinting, they are never ideal followers. Hai Di wants an army of altered beasts where he possesses total control."

Something clicked in Amon’s mind. "That’s why he needs Zee Whang for."

Dao Su nodded. "My task is to build a combat-effective creature. After imprinting the souls, I estimate the combat power of my creation can reach the Supreme or even the Mammoth Stage, provided, of course, the imprinted souls are cultivators of those levels. The resulting creatures, though powerful, will be something with extremely unstable mental states."

"That’s where Zee Whang comes in with his mental regulator."

Dao Su nodded. "Zee Whang’s creation can only control weak cultivators, but my creations brought to life using soul imprints have extremely weak minds. Even if its physical power is as strong as a Mammoth Stage cultivator’s, its mind is not. Hence, it can be controlled using Zee Whang’s mental regulators. Well, that’s all in theory at least."

"The two of you have never achieved success in all the years under Li Zhong’s supervision?"

"First of all, it’s not like you can just transplant the souls of Supreme and Mammoth cultivators. These cultivators are pretty rare, you know? The strongest we were given to test with is only the Fiendish Stage. Even that stage resulted in countless failures and deaths. Li Zhong said he would only let us test on a Supreme Stage cultivator once we achieve at least an eighty percent success rate."

Amon considered the implication. Hai Di most likely wanted to use this method on his high-level enemies or followers whom he deemed no longer loyal. If the experiment succeeded, Hai Di would have an army of high-level combatants who heeded his every word.

Amon grinned. Though Dao Su and Zee Whang’s experiments hadn’t succeeded, these means were now in his hand. If he could foster these two experts, Hai Di’s idea would become his instead.