Chereads / The Devil's Civilisation / Chapter 21 - Cunning Plan

Chapter 21 - Cunning Plan

The moment the devil discovered the secret about his apostle's body, a secret that not even she knew, he decided to put a plan into action. But what was this secret? It was a Physique. A Physique was a special constitution that granted the host unique abilities or physical enhancements that those without it could not recreate. Although they provided the host with benefits, some side effects came with these powerful boosts. Some gained voracious appetites, others were afflicted with insatiable lust and in Faye's case, insanity. The devil had seen various types of Physiques during his mortal life, so when he saw a slight release of power from Faye's physique, he instantly recognised it. 

His apostle's physique was from a series of Physiques known as the Rampaging Beasts, with all the hosts of the constitutions in this series becoming beast-like whilst using their power. They also shared the same quality of granting more power, the more injured the host while also taking away more of their clarity. Faye's Physique in particular was known as the Beast of Blood Madness, the unique ability it granted the user was the manipulation of bloodlust, the red aura that allowed Faye to summon the flying claw mark. Although this was part of the reason why the devil wanted to corrupt the girl, the main reason was the conditions to fully awaken the Physique. Unlike the other Physiques in the Rampanging Beasts series, the Beast of Blood Madness was granted to the host in a semi-awakened state while they were still in their mother's womb. The price for this power was the mother's life essence.

To gain the unrestricted Physique, the host needed to absorb their father's life essence. And this condition was a vital part of the devil's plan. But this wasn't important right now. What the devil needed to do was create the perfect scenario in which the girl had no one to turn to except him. This is where the Examine technique came in handy as it presented him with information such as her name, age, talent and most importantly, her life story. Although the information he received was very vague, due to his lack of influence on Genesis, it provided him with enough to understand Faye's current predicament and her feelings towards her father, these feelings paired with the cold treatment she received were what led her straight into the devil's hands. What would happen if the person she desired love from showed their "true colours"? To get such a thing to happen, the devil needed to create a threat, such a threat that it would push the villagers to reveal the true nature of humans.

Humans were fickle creatures, they would sell out their mothers just to live another day, and just like the devil predicted, with the arrival of the Warforge group and their declaration of a Demon Hunt, the villagers accused one another to save their skin. But the devil did not care about this, he was more focused on the most desperate of all the villagers, the village chief. The devil knew about her damaged Mana Heart and was well aware that the knight group would have the necessary tools to heal said Mana Heart, he just needed the leader of the group to follow the script and offer a reward for the villager's cooperation, which was exactly what he did. Unlike the other villagers, the village chief needed the reward, so rather than throw out baseless accusations like her people, she put her mind to work and carefully thought about the person most likely to fit the bill. And the answer she came to was Faye. Exactly what the devil wanted.

With the looks of hatred and disgust that Faye began to receive as soon as she was accused, she began to feel a sense of hopelessness but within this hopelessness was the hope that her father would come to save her. That he would finally show her the love that she had always wanted. And he would have if it weren't for the meddling of a certain devil. The devil had discovered that he could generate a unique energy called Corruption Essence, which was diluted down to Corruption Energy due to the restrictions placed on God Essence, using this Corruption Energy the devil warped Articus' love for Faye. Yes. The cold man had actually loved his daughter. The reason behind this love was that the girl was the last thing left behind by his wife, although he felt hate towards the girl, deep within his heart, he wished for the girl to live a happy life away from him. With the devil's interference, this reason was twisted to he loved her because she resembled his wife, meaning that instead of wanting to protect the girl, he wanted to tear her to shreds for killing his wife and tainting her kind image with her affiliations with demons.

But where exactly did this Corruption Energy come from, after all, the devil wasn't allowed to directly send his energy into Genesis, so he used an indirect method. 

Devil Exclusive Technique: Demon Gate. This technique allowed the user to rip a hole in the fabric of Genesis' space and open a gate to a Demon World, the size of the gate and the number of demons in the Demon World was proportional to the user's level of influence. Since he had no influence in the Primordial Seed, the devil could only open a minuscule hole about the size of a small ring, on top of this, his Demon World was empty, not a single soul was present within.

But the devil didn't open the Demon Gate to release demons, it was to release demonic mana and corruption energy into the environment. It just so happened that the devil opened the Gate in a goblin camp, this was intentional, he planned to demonise these goblins to draw the attention of a knight group that he had noticed while hunting for a village. Bathing in the Demonic Mana, almost every goblin in the camp was grasped by a demonic wisp, their green skin shifting to red, their small stature growing larger. However. upon being touched by the Corruption Energy, their sizes began to decrease while their skin shifted to purple. 

The goblins retained the strength they gained through demonisation, however, their intelligence was boosted by the Corruption Energy. This is what caused the deaths of some of the Seedlings from the Warforge group, they hadn't expected to encounter goblins with smarts as they were notorious for their stupidity. Allowing the goblins to be corrupted by his energy allowed the devil to draw the Warforge group towards the village while also allowing the Corruption Energy in the goblins' bodies to be marked as theirs. This would allow the purple energy to remain in the world longer, which would mean the devil could manipulate the energy towards the village and into Articus. If the devil tried to do this while the energy was still marked as his, the Primordial Seed would quickly expel the energy from its domain.

The devil snickered as he realised how much the Warforge group had done for him without realising they were the perfect pawns. His mind shifted back to his plan, the point where he offered the hope that she so desperately yearned for after her father's betrayal, the devil preyed on the girl's desire for love giving her what she wanted, filling her with twisted love that corrupted the girl's heart. What interested the devil was the fact that the girl willingly accepted his corruption, she let him sully her as he pleased. That was simply how desperate she was. After awakening her, the devil guided the girl towards the key to her true power using the technique, Whispers of the Abyss, while repeating a certain mantra in her mind. 

'Slaughter them'

'Bathe in their blood'

'Feast on their flesh'

'Become the truest version of yourself'

The reason behind this was simple: as she eventually lost her sanity to the Beast of Blood Madness, these would be the only words ringing in her mind. In her beast-like state, she would no longer be chained by her morality and indulge in these demonic practices. This would be the final blow to ensure that she accepts the way of the demons.

Although the devil was sure his plan would succeed, he didn't expect that the result would be so... perfect. Her loyalty, love and faith towards him were constantly growing, he was sure that at one point in the future she would be able to produce enough faith to raise beings to the next level in one go. He had well and truly lucked out.

His purple eyes shifted towards the Observation Screen, his gaze locked onto his apostle as he wondered what his next course of action should be.