NOVPUB
Chapter 63: Unexpected Discovery
"What are you talking about?" Commander Jin asked.
"What am I talking about? Why don’t you guess?" Aldrian answered with a smile. He was quite astonished when he saw Commander Jin’s information at the teleportation station.
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Jin Tae-Yang
Age : 63.170 years
Race : Human
Cultivation : Middle Duke
Cultivation technique : The Curse of The Devil God
Attack techniques : Shadow garden, Shadow from abyss, black fire, blaze in the abyss
Defence technique : Devil form
Movement technique : None
Supporting techniques : The veil of darkness, Devil form, Shadow clones
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He truly found the result unexpected and wondered how a devil could hold a position in this city. Had the devils infiltrated like they had in the Ivory Empire? Or was there a traitor among the demon cultivators? He needed to look into it. With a devil here in demon territory, it was another story altogether—he would uncover what the devils had in mind for this place.
Commander Jin looked at Aldrian without expression, but inside, his heart was in turmoil.
"He’s not talking about me, right?" Jin was sure he had never shown any devil characteristics to anyone.
"Stop playing with words! If you don’t answer seriously, I’ll consider it opposition to authority and have you locked in the dungeon until your trial," Commander Jin said.
"Oh, then let me be more clear. Why is a devil at the Duke stage working as the commander of a battalion in demon—"
Before Aldrian could finish, a dagger covered in darkness shot toward his eyes. He tilted his head and caught the hand holding the dagger. He then inserted his energy into Commander Jin’s body to paralyze him, but he was surprised when Jin still managed to move and attempted to stab him with his other hand.
Aldrian flipped the battle and moved further, but because they were in a room with limited space, he only took a short distance. Commander Jin looked at Aldrian warily. From his attempt to kill the young man just now and having his hand grabbed, he could feel the powerful grip, something impossible for someone at the Earl stage. He also felt the energy that tried to block a few points in his meridian, making his movements slower. Thanks to his strong body, the energy needed time to incapacitate him, giving him another chance to attack Aldrian.
"Who are you? State your name!" Commander Jin shouted.
"Are you really an idiot? Why should I answer that?" Aldrian retorted.
Commander Jin attacked Aldrian again, this time using a technique that blanketed the entire room in darkness. The room turned into his domain of darkness, without a speck of light. Aldrian couldn’t see anything, and his senses were slightly obstructed, though not much, because there was no way this domain of darkness could overwhelm his own domain.
Before Commander Jin even entered the room, Aldrian had already created a domain with a diameter of 2 kilometers. This entire headquarters was his playground! He could still sense Commander Jin behind the darkness.
"In this darkness, I am the ruler! I will make you spill every piece of information you have!" Commander Jin shouted.
"Is that so? But first, you have to resist my energy inside you," Aldrian replied calmly.
"What are y—" Commander Jin suddenly felt his body grow heavy, and his energy flow within his meridians became chaotic. He was shocked to sense the foreign energy wreaking havoc inside him. He tried to push the energy out, but his body felt weak. He dropped to the ground, gasping like an old man. Unable to maintain his technique, his domain of darkness unraveled, revealing Aldrian’s feet already in front of his face.
"I have to say, your domain of darkness is quite good—it even slightly disturbed my senses, though it was just a tingling sensation," Aldrian said. Commander Jin struggled to look at Aldrian’s face.
"Wh—at did you do to me?" he asked with difficulty.
"You’ve got a tough body, I’ll give you that. But once my energy enters your body, it’s already over. You see, I can transform my energy into many kinds of poisons," Aldrian explained.
During his time in the Ivory Empire, Aldrian occasionally visited the Forest of Despair to train and cultivate. He studied various spirits, beasts, and the wild elements like poisons. He theorized that if his energy could encompass all, then he could turn it into poison as well. Through sheer willpower, he managed to change the properties of his energy into different poisons, ranging from paralytic to deadly.
The results satisfied him, giving him another weapon in his arsenal and a trick up his sleeve. He smiled at Commander Jin, whose face was filled with panic and horror. Jin couldn’t understand how an Earl stage cultivator could paralyze him. Even if the young man before him was a poison expert, the gap in their cultivation levels shouldn’t be something an Earl-stage energy could bridge.
"You don’t have to wonder how I achieved this. Now, let me see what your history is like." Aldrian then touched Commander Jin’s forehead. As expected, there was a seal on his mind, and this one was more complex than any Aldrian had encountered before. But who was he? Aldrian wasn’t one to back down. He worked to decipher the seal, he remains in that position until it finally broke, causing Commander Jin to tremble and gasp in shock.
Aldrian ignored him and tried to read his memories, but to his surprise, he found only darkness. He sensed a bizarre feeling lurking behind the darkness, he sensed that something approaching him with fast speed, so he quickly withdrew his technique and released Commander Jin’s forehead.
He realized that if he had been a moment too late, he might have been detected by the entity behind the darkness. It was a strange sensation—it wasn’t danger, but more like the feeling of being about to be discovered by someone. He frowned as he looked at Commander Jin.
"What is that?" he wondered.
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In a dimly lit place, a burly man sat in a lotus position, his silhouette barely visible by the flickering torchlight. He opened his black eyes, revealing red irises, and his face took on a contemplative expression.
"I sensed someone breaking the seal on one of the Duke stage cultivators, but before I could trace them, they retracted their technique," he murmured to himself.
"So, one of my chess pieces has been caught? But they withdrew before my senses could pinpoint them." He closed his eyes again, and a smaller silhouette appeared behind him, kneeling.
"Your orders, my lord?" the smaller figure asked.
"Tell ’The Hunters’ to observe the locations where we’ve stationed Duke stage cultivators. If there’s any anomaly, report to me immediately."
"We receive your command," the smaller silhouette replied before disappearing into the darkness. The room returned to silence, with only the crackling of the torch breaking the stillness. The burly figure then closed his eyes once more.
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Back at Aldrian’s location, he pondered for a moment before coming to a realization.
"The Duke stage has another failsafe besides the seal," he thought, glancing at Commander Jin, who was staring at him in disbelief.
"Ah, I see, that was your lord’s sense! Your lord is indeed very cautious, embedding his sense within the seal in case it’s broken without killing you. But I didn’t encounter anything like that when I looked into the memories of those devils before. So, my guess is he only places his sense within Duke-stage cultivators or above. Am I right?" Aldrian smiled at Commander Jin.
He had just read Jin’s mind about what had happened, and it seemed that Commander Jin was aware of his lord’s sense within the seal. Aldrian then considered how to extract more information from this devil, worried that if he delved into Jin’s memories again, his lord’s sense might track him, jeopardizing his journey.
Aldrian decided to try hypnotizing Commander Jin, just as he had done with Norman. Since he had already broken the seal, he wasn’t concerned about the man in front of him dying from revealing secrets. He halted the poison in Commander Jin’s body and locked eyes with him. The commander struggled to resist the hypnosis, but in his weakened state, he couldn’t do much.
"This presence... is it the Devil Lord?" Aldrian began asking.
"Ye... n... Yes," Commander Jin responded, though he still tried to resist.
"As expected, he’s still a Duke stage cultivator. His will is much stronger than that of a Marquess," Aldrian thought. It seemed he needed to upgrade his hypnotic technique if he wanted to subdue Duke stage opponents more effectively.
"Why are the devils in demon territory? What are you planning?" he pressed further.
"It’s to... to..." Before Commander Jin could finish, he fainted, leaving Aldrian momentarily stunned.
"His weakened mind couldn’t hold on."
Aldrian then placed Commander Jin on a chair and touched his forehead again. After hesitating for a moment, he decided to check Commander Jin’s memories once more. Now that Jin was unconscious, Aldrian could only gain something by reading his memories. As he carefully entered Jin’s mind, he could see the memories without the darkness, a sign that the ’lord’s’ sense had already dissipated.
"First, let’s make him forget about our meeting," Aldrian thought. He meticulously erased the part of Jin’s memory where they had encountered each other. It was much easier this time since he didn’t need to delve deeply into the memories.
"Next, let’s see what you’ve got for me."
