This time, Rachel acquired two skills.
One was called 'Heavenly Incarnation,' and the other was 'Mage Incarnation.'
"What are these? Let's try them!" she decided to try them out instead of thinking.
She activated 'Mage Incarnation,' and her eyes widened.
"I can feel something, like a part of me far away! It's a vague feeling, but I can sense its mood. Now, it is feeling confused. Does that mean another me is now in the mage world?" She thought.
Then, she activated 'Heavenly Incarnation' too, and once more felt a part of her far away. The feeling was bizarre and hard to explain.
Suddenly, she sensed her Heavenly Incarnation was feeling very anxious.
"What is going on? Is she in danger?" she thought.
...
Rachel's Heavenly Incarnation was on the ground.
"What is going on? Am I the incarnation I just created? I inherited all of the memories! Wait, why am I rank 0 again?" She felt perplexed.
She tried to make pills, and fortunately, the pill list collected by the main body remained.
She could create a lot of different kinds of pills. Of course, only the rank 0 version could be made.
"Huh? What is that?" she thought.
A woman with a single set of enormous wings landed on the ground.
"Why is luck disturbed in this area?" God of Fate thought.
Fate was a device that made it possible to look at the river of time.
The Fragment Law of Fate was created by combining the Way of Fate and the Way of the Magnifier, but its name was kept as the Fragment Law of Fate.
The God of Fate used his Fragment Law to observe the object resembling a pill container carefully.
"What a tremendous stroke of luck! And it's just a portion of its luck; there should be more in a different place! How peculiar. I should retrieve it and study it, but first..."
She cast the rank 9 spell, "Hidden in River."
The immense stroke of luck in the river of time disappeared without a trace.
"Good, now, nobody should be able to detect it or take it from me," the God of Fate smiled.
She knew that if any of the 'Truth Path' gods found it, they would insist on sharing it among all, making it impossible for her to keep it to herself.
In general, gods were divided into two main parties.
One was the 'True Path' party, and the other was the 'Freedom' party.
The 'True Path' party always held the majority and dominated all three councils. They believed all gods should act as one to achieve the creators' visions.
The Freedom Path believed that, while they should follow in the creators' footsteps, the creators' vision was for them to be free from the old traditions.
God of Fate took the container and teleported to his palace. Every God had a palace, with their angels serving as servants and attendants.
However, it was not like hell, where demons are all slaves.
The angels are free to choose their favorite gods. The market for angels is actually competitive, driving wages higher and higher.
A few tens of thousands of years ago, some 'Freedom' party gods managed to gain bipartisan support from 'True Path' members to pass a law limiting the wages of angels.
However, the law was struck down by the Council of Gods for not correctly aligning with the visions of the creators.
Laws could only be challenged by the Executive Council if a supermajority of them believed the law in question egregiously conflicted with the creators' visions. It's a very rare thing to happen.
The God of Fate reached his palace, entered his laboratory, and started experimenting.
...
"Why isn't the skill deactivating? My incarnation is so anxious that something has definitely happened!" she thought, becoming worried.
She also tried to deactivate the mage incarnation but failed. Still, she felt the mage incarnation was in much better shape.
"Why is she happy? Something good must have happened to her. Ah, never mind. I can't disable it, so I just hope it doesn't adversely affect me!"
She already regretted using the skills, but it was too late.
"Now, let's think about what happened with the river of time that time!" she thought deeply.
"I greatly disturbed the river, creating huge waves, and something came out from the depths."
"So if the river is disturbed enough, it can cause people from the depths to come out? But who was he? Too many unanswered questions."
"When he disappeared, did he return to the river's depth, or did he just teleport away?"
"I don't dare use the skill again, but there is no doubt 'Dive in Time' has more to it than just the reflection," she thought.
"But the man came from the depths of Original Duty, not the depths of the Protector. So, is he still dead in Protector? What happens when the two rivers merge?" she thought momentarily and answered the question.
"Only one river can survive, either Protector or Original Duty. So if Original Duty prevails and wholly swallows Protector, he can survive; otherwise, he will die again."
Then, she looked at Zagronan, who was concentrating intensely. Rachel waited for another day before he opened his eyes.
"So much better! I feel like I can destroy the entire hell!" he exclaimed, laughing very loudly.
"You look like an evil scientist right now. What happened to your abilities?"
After rank 4, the abilities would mutate and get stronger.
"My weak point is gone, and I can use up to 7 enhancing spells! Also, my other abilities all got stronger," he said.
The weakness of 'spellcasting talent' was much slower progress in every physical ability. This was one of the reasons that, despite using so many pills, he was so helpless against Horn.
"Now you're entering a stable period. With me endlessly providing you with rank 4 pills, you can reach rank 5 in a few centuries at most!"
Even with rank 4 pills, reaching rank 5 would still take a while.
"Yeah, let's go visit Lana," he said.
Rachel sighed and started mentally ready herself for what was about to come.
...
Lana was in a room with a baby in her arms! The baby had a pig's head with a human's body.
"Lana, you're amazing! It only took a few days! If it goes like this, we can have thousands of children!" Zagronan said.
"Your genes are not as good as I thought. Look at this trash! Its blood is so inferior!" she said.
She was about to swallow the child whole, but Zagronan stopped her.
"Lana, let's give him a chance. I'll throw him somewhere. If he deserves it, he may survive," he said.
"But why? Don't you want to know how your child tastes?" she said.
Zagronan was tempted but gritted his teeth and said, "I still think we should give him a chance. We can find other newborn demons to eat. Why should we eat our own baby? After all, whatever its quality, we still worked to make it, right?" He tried hard to convince her.
Lana reluctantly agreed and said, "Okay, hell already enslaved him. Just put him in a 'Carehouse.'"
'Carehouse' was the place where enslaved demon children were raised.
The baron controlled it, and after growing up, they would join his army.
After each non-royal is born, they would be enslaved to the closest noble demon. The noble demons could do whatever they wanted with them, but most would care for them to grow up.
Only intelligent children would raised in the 'Carehouse'. As for unintelligent children, they would be thrown to the 'Camp' where they fend for themselves.
'Camp' is outside the city and safe from hostile demons who want to eat them.
Zagronan went and placed the pig-headed child in a 'Carehome' and returned quickly.
He and Lana became busy making another child, hoping it would have Royal blood.
Rachel tried to close her eyes, but she really couldn't because she could still see even with her eyes closed. After all, she didn't really have eyes, and the 'closing of eyes' was only a reflex left from her human times.
"Why should I be forced to witness this?" she was truly disgusted.
After a long time, it finally finished, and Zagronan left.
"Zagronan, do you know what shame is?" Rachel asked him.
"Shame? I read about it in a book. It's an emotion humans have, right?" he said as if finding something laughable.
"Yeah, do you want to learn it?"
"Nope!" he said.
Rachel sighed and fell silent.
...
Cory Powell was a human who died in a car accident on Earth.
It was the usual, clichéd story. A truck was about to hit a little girl; he jumped to save the child and died.
He saved the child out of reflex.
If it were happening more slowly and he had time to think, he would absolutely not have sacrificed his life for a stranger, even if it was a child.
But even so, even if he didn't deserve a medal or reward, at the very least, he didn't deserve to be punished like this!
"God, why is this happening to me? What is going on? Why do I feel like my nose is like a pig's? Who are these weird monsters?" he thought.
When he first opened his eyes, he saw a huge woman who appeared very hostile, as if she wanted to eat him.
Finally, a terrifying man picked him up and threw him into a cage with many other strange-looking 'babies.'
"I was reborn, right? But why am I here? I feel like I'm in hell! Is this how you reward someone for saving a child from a truck, God?" he felt furious as he contemplated his fate.
He had a family and a good life. He had plans for his future, which was now gone in a blink!
"The Strongest Demon System is loading."
"1% ... 36% ... 88% ... 100%!"
"Congratulations to the host for being chosen as the system's host. The system will help you survive in this strange world and become the strongest demon. Now, choose your starting career."
Then, a list appeared in front of his eyes.
"Demon politician"
"Demon soldier"
"Demon ninja"
"Demon artist"
"Demon..."
A long list appeared in his vision.
"What is this, System? Like in those novels?" He had read those Chinese novels from his previous life when he was young.
"Which should I choose?" He looked at them and decided to choose 'demon ninja,' solely because of the anime 'Naruto,' which left a deep impression on him as a teenager.
"Congratulations, you are a level 1 demon ninja (1/10). To increase your level, you must act like a ninja!"
"No, hell no! I should have chosen 'demon artist'! Then, I could paint while getting XP! Damn!" He regretted his choice.
He tried to change it to 'demon artist,' but it didn't work.
"Let's start. Now, what do ninjas do?" He began to figure out how to earn XP.
...
In the Mage world, Rachel was smiling. "It feels good to be worshipped!" she thought.
When she first appeared, she was like a falling star, creating a lot of light.
A nearby tribe of wood elves found her and worshipped her like a god. They bowed and brought sacrifices.
"I didn't know I liked being worshipped. I guess people don't know themselves until they experience it!" she thought.
A small wood elf girl appeared and looked at Rachel.
"What is she doing? She wants to steal me?" Rachel thought. It went as she thought, with the wood elf child stealing her and running away.
"Those idiot adult wood elves left me unprotected." She was unhappy about being stolen and no longer being worshipped.
A day later, the wood elves searched a little and forgot about Rachel.
The wood elf girl had hidden her among her toys.
"I should just make her my host and experiment to see whether I can rank up."
She is an incarnation, so she is curious to know whether she can rank up.
The elf girl came again to play with her and accidentally opened the container.
A rank 0 'body strengthening' pill dropped out. The girl took it and looked at it curiously.
Rachel smiled, sure the girl could not resist the tempting smell of this pill.
Sure enough, the girl smelled it, put it in her mouth, and swallowed it!