Demons Among Gods

Both formless figures were not any living entity, yet they were an "existence."

One had an extremely distorted figure with a smirk on its "face," and opposite it stood another tall, dark figure.

The dark figure didn’t have any face and was just a form that looked like a tall humanoid, covered completely in a long, dark, smoke-like robe.

The dark figure’s "expression" was grave. It quavered and hesitated for a long time.

The smirking distorted figure, which was Eric’s soul, could also "see" the dark-cloaked figure’s actions.

Both had appeared as soon as Eric’s heart exploded, killing him. Since then, they had just stared at each other without uttering a single word, as they didn’t even have physical bodies to speak.

They stood in the same "posture" and location. No matter where Eric’s physical body moved, they moved with it as if glued to it—or rather, there was no "traveling" for them. Everywhere was the same.

The dark figure was clearly growing impatient. It had hesitated for a long time on whether to take action.

It *shouldn’t* have manifested, but because the smirking, arrogant person had broken the fundamental rules and limitations of existence—something that shouldn’t even be possible—it had been forced to appear.

The dark figure could not and should not interfere with the physical plane, yet it also couldn’t let such a disaster go unchecked. So, it hesitated over whether to personally end this person.

After waiting over an hour, the corpse slowly healed and came back to life. Seeing this, the dark figure finally couldn’t hold back and raised its "hand" to do something it shouldn’t.

Eric didn’t try to stop the dark figure’s actions—he didn’t even have a brain to process what was happening. He just acted on instinct.

He also raised his nonexistent arms, crossed them over his "chest," and grinned widely at the dark figure, as if curious to see what it would do.

The dark figure was about to act—but then its "pupil" suddenly narrowed.

Another figure appeared beside the smirking figure. This one was strange, but it could be "understood" as "feminine"—a very unusual, mutated soul would be the correct term.

This new figure was "connected" to the grinning boy, as if her roots and her very life were tied to him. They were different existences, yet somehow the same—or rather, together as one.

This formless figure also raised her "arms" and crossed them over her chest. The boy and girl glanced at each other, laughed silently, then turned back to the dark figure with the same curious "smile."

The dark figure paused, then slowly lowered its arm back to its original position.

It *knew* the souls before it couldn’t think—their soul-bodies hadn’t developed enough, and they acted only on the instincts they’d lived by.

Similarly, these souls couldn’t stop it from separating the physical body from them entirely.

Yet, seeing the female form appear—so strangely bound to the boy—it calmed.

This was its first time witnessing such an odd, abnormal pairing of souls.

It had seen many situations where two different souls merged together, or one tried to take over the other, or just a temporary borrowing as a vessel to avoid dissipating—and many other situations, both accidental and intentional.

It had deep knowledge and experience in such things.

Yet the two souls currently in front of it were completely, utterly new to it.

Both souls were far too jumbled and messed up. Their combination made no sense. It was an accident that was too unreal and impossible to replicate.

It had seen many unique things since time immemorial, but these two’s uniqueness… was much more messed up than what was just visible upfront.

The reason the dark figure calmed down and gave up on taking action was that it could clearly see the boy’s soul was defective and damaged, beyond self-repair or healing, while the girl was completely dependent on the boy and similarly incomplete—forever. In fact, neither should have even been able to be born; it was only their odd combination that somehow made them complete.

Nonetheless, this soul, with its defectiveness, would never be able to step on a ‘path’ to becoming a proper ‘existence’ by itself.

Since that was the case, there was no need for it to take further action, as both would perish over time anyway.

After that, no one moved, remaining still in the same posture.

An unknown time later, the dark figure slowly dissipated and disappeared.

---

Midnight passed, and only after that did Livy manage to amputate two of the spider’s limbs, which slipped to the ground with a loud thud.

Livy had a deep frown on her pale face.

Lyria, who had already returned and was sitting beside Livy, asked, puzzled, "Is it that sturdy? It took you over six hours?"

Livy thought for a few moments and then shook her head.

With an inconceivable tone, she uttered, "Ly, I think this white armor can no longer be counted as Tier 3 material—it's Tier 4!" She herself had a hard time believing it as she spoke.

Lyria startled. "Tier 4?!" She nearly stood up in shock.

Tier 4 seemed one step higher than Tier 3, but similar to the vast difference between a Rank 2 and Rank 3 Mana Beast, the gap between Blacksmith materials of different tiers was enormous—especially after Tier 2. That was why she was so dumbstruck.

'Just how the hell did a Rank 3 Mana Beast create Tier 4 material?' It was the same as if this Rank 3 Mana Beast had suddenly become a Rank 4!

Absolutely incomprehensible.

The jump was just too great—like a straight leap from Mortal to Master Rank.

Seeing Lyria’s disbelief, Livy explained in a serious tone, "My WaterJet Dual-Wield works differently than you might think. Every second it’s attached to something, the damage multiplies. Within a single second, it attacks the same spot countless times with extreme sharpness."

"Despite that, it took me over six hours to chop through it without interruption. The white armor alone took over five hours. Inside it, the original Rank 3 spider shell only took me an hour—largely because it was damaged and weakened, probably from my final killing strike. Still, it shows how abnormally tough this white armor is. In short, this Newborn-stage Rank 3 Beast somehow produced defensive ability equal to a Rank 4’s!"

Lyria didn’t know what to say.

She was internally amazed by the Mystical-type Rank 3 Crimson Tide Spider’s ability—but more than that, she felt dread at Livy’s power.

She promised herself to follow Eric’s guidance—to threaten the gods and heavens every day—so she would gain even stronger defensive ability in the future.

She absolutely would not lose her position as the elder sister!

"Anyway, take a short break and continue. We don’t have much time. I’ve already applied our best melting agents to the other joints to speed things up, but since it’s Tier 4, I doubt it’ll help much."

Livy agreed and decided to nap briefly to recover. She had drunk stamina potions almost hourly to sustain her ability, leaving her with an unbearable headache. Pushing further without rest would only worsen it.

Lyria entered the Space Tent she’d set up above the spider to check on Eric. She would keep watch tonight while Livy and Eric rested.

Night passed without incident.

By 10 AM, Livy had removed two more limbs.

Lyria stored the amputated limbs inside the pocket watch. Covering objects didn’t take as much Mana as imbibing weapons took.

She was internally quite nervous. It would take at least another day to finish. She wished to be done with this as soon as possible, as Eric was still too gravely injured; otherwise, if necessary, she could even fight a Master Rank or run away.

She had thought multiple times about leaving the spider’s corpse behind, but that would be equally disastrous.

If they left any clues behind, that might lead some Master Ranks to track them. Then they would interrogate them on how a spider that could produce Rank 4 Mana Beast’s defensive armor had died.

Overall, it would become no less troublesome for all three of them if they left the corpse behind. So, they had to take everything away with them to leave as few clues as possible. They must also take away snapped trees and many such pointless things, just as a precaution.

The only thing they could be grateful for was that Batley City was approximately a month away from their location. Even if a Master Rank was rushing, they would take at least a week or a few more days to arrive. Thus, they still had at least three to five days, hopefully.

Of course, there was also a chance that no one was coming or that no one had even noticed a wild Newborn-stage Rank 3 had appeared here. After all, Crimson Tide Spiders were also known to be good at stealth, and maybe their presence was well hidden and still hadn’t been detected by Batley City.

Whatever it was, Lyria wished to leave as soon as possible.

Livy could understand that they were walking on a thin line at this moment, so she didn’t hesitate to endure more headaches and even drank Tier 2 Stamina Potions to take as little rest as possible.

After an entire day, they successfully managed to store the spider’s massive corpse inside the pocket watch.

They had also cleaned the entire battlefield as thoroughly as possible.

After a quick recheck by both of them, they flew away while sitting on the Floating Carpet.

Their target was the wide river flowing toward the northeast.