Chapter 245: Domineeringly Evil
Without hesitation, every Nascent Realm cultivator took their own lives in various gory manners — some of them combusting on the spot, violently exploding their cores into showers of bone and blood... some of them slapping their own heads into a gooey mess... some of them ripping out their own hearts with raw, wet tears... dying a slower, more painful death, feeling life leave them even as their Nascent Realm cultivation continued to keep them alive for minutes without a heart...
This was another level of shock to Uhtred. He had seen gory things — deaths of different manners — but seeing scores of powerhouses take their own lives brutally like mindless husks was shocking in a different way.
He wanted to avert his eyes and face forward, but he held himself and watched the whole thing with a flat face. This was the Demonic Cult... the real Demonic Cult.
Despite the fact that it was obvious now that Lucky worked for the Heavenly Demon, the Heavenly Demon had still ordered the deaths of his subordinates for failing to perceive someone who he wanted to reach here anyway.
Perhaps some of these cultivators below had even sensed them and allowed a smoother passage... who knew?
Now they were dying for it without even getting to speak a word.
Uhtred finally understood how brutal the Demonic Cult could be. Throughout his journey here with Lucky, he had seen some brutal things, but none that struck him as truly brutal. It had been relatively tame for the most part.
He hadn’t even seen anything that warranted the warning that Zara gave him back in the waiting room.
However, now he could see it for himself.
His expression hardened and he followed after the Heavenly Demon, with Lucky following shortly after him.
He didn’t turn back once to look at the kid. He kept his gaze forward the whole time, even as they climbed up the mighty palace stairs... even as they neared those giant double doors opening into a blackness so deep, it felt alive... even as he strode into that blackness without hesitation.
"Hmm? This should be somewhat interesting. Not just anyone walks through the Demonic Maw without hesitation," the voice of the Heavenly Demon sounded from somewhere ahead of him and behind him at the same time.
A heavy sense of disorientation flooded Uhtred’s mind. The blackness surrounding him was absolute and fear-inducing, hovering like thick, suffocating smoke that seemed to pulse and breathe against his skin, but he continued to stride forward nonetheless.
At several moments, he felt as though something was coming at him from the darkness, but he forced every fiber of his being to remain still.
The feeling of danger would pass, nothing would appear, but then the same thing would repeat again.
At times, it got so urgent that Uhtred almost felt the urge to attack, but he didn’t. At other times, he was even compelled to use his Gnostic Eye. It could unveil the truth of this living blackness, allowing him to remain steady and pass through it much easier, but he didn’t.
A part of him was aware that this... whatever this was, was connected to the Heavenly Demon. Whether it was an ability, a technique, or whatever it was exactly, Uhtred could feel traces of the Heavenly Demon’s presence spread out within it.
Using his Gnostic Eye on the blackness could draw the Heavenly Demon’s attention to it.
Of course, Uhtred knew the Heavenly Demon was someone perceptive enough to see the purple color in his pupil, but the fact that he had said nothing about it meant he likely didn’t know what it was and couldn’t be bothered to ask himself.
Uhtred wasn’t about to reveal an advantage he currently had.
Thankfully, in less than a minute, the whole ordeal was over. The blackness receded in front of him, opening up to a grand interior shining with red and gold crystals and precious stones of all kinds.
Red was the dominant color inside the palace. Besides that, there were traces of gold woven into some of the tapestry.
The floors were a cold, obsidian black — some sort of polished stone that glistened like dark glass while giving off a natural, suffocating evil aura that even Uhtred could feel in his bones.
The interior of the palace was narrower than the exterior made it seem. It led straight up to a mighty throne made of skulls, spines, and skeletal remains of various beasts, humans, and weird creatures Uhtred had never seen before.
All of them were calcified in the same black stone the floor was made out of, giving off a morbidly evil aura.
Sheesh. I have to give it to this guy... this place is freaking terrifying, Uhtred lampooned internally. Anyone who stepped foot in here was already at a disadvantage — and that was without the Demonic Maw of blackness one had to go through first.
Uhtred was impressed. This level of psychological dominance was something he could see himself adopting when he returned back to Earth.
Of course, he wasn’t going to use human and beast skulls like some sort of demon, but there were other ways to make his own hall in Capitol of the Elite more oppressive to any person coming in to negotiate or meet with him for official matters.
Ah. What am I thinking of right now...
Uhtred quickly caught himself.
The matter of his survival had not yet even been decided, and he was already thinking of what he would do when he returned back to Earth.
Let’s see what he has to say first...
He looked up at the throne, where the Heavenly Demon was already seated.
The Heavenly Demon didn’t bother with etiquette. He sat with his legs on his throne and an arm atop his knee in a relaxed posture as he stared down at Uhtred.
"Why do you think you are here?" the Heavenly Demon began, his voice booming across the grand palace, easily heard from every corner despite the large size.
"You seem to have deduced some things on your own. So tell me, why do you think you are here? What have you deduced so far?"