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Perhaps because of inexperience, confidence, not having enough information, or perhaps not thinking it was possible, Jin did not notice that, while the monstrosity did indeed explode his soul, he didn't explode the entirety of it.
Although it sounds simple, it's not.
You see, the soul has three parts. The first is the outer layer: it's a concentrated energy that turned into fog. This outer layer is the skin of the soul, and it protects against attacks directly against the soul. The more fog, the better the protection.
The second part is the middle layer. It's also a concentrated energy, but one that turned into liquid and has a bit of existence injected in it. It protects against psychological attacks and curses. The thicker the energy, the better the protection.
The third part is the core. It's not concentrated energy but concentrated [Existence]. It contains the identity, the memories, the goal, and, most importantly, it's the ticket to reincarnation. As long as there is enough of the first and second layers, it will grow. The bigger the core, the more difficult it will be to kill someone on the same level as you.
Now that we've explained that, let's explain what the monstrosity did. Most demons know the monstrosity as the weakest high demon, but that is not actually a hundred percent correct.
The monstrosity is a strange entity. Although it controls the law of corruption, the most dangerous law for the mind, it's the most psychologically stable high demon.
The reason for that is its goal. It dreams of using the powers of corruption without side effects. No, that's not even the main goal. It just desires to be sane.
And so, in pursuit of this goal, it didn't let the energy of corruption get mixed with its soul core, which is the main reason that all beings who reach a certain level in their power get some traits of their law. How did it do so, you might ask? Well, it's simple. It played by the rules.
Why does hell exist? To punish, of course. And so, it let the laws of hell torture its soul. Every single second of its life, it felt pain that would make even the ruler of hell cry in pain—all to stay sane. By doing so, its soul core was getting purified a tiny bit faster than it was corrupted.
And in order to be able to direct the punishment to only destroy the power of corruption, it needed unparalleled control. And as it turns out, pain was a very good motivation.
Now, let's look into what the monstrosity did.
It first cut 0.000001 percent of its soul core. This might seem like too little, and yes, that's true, but that's the maximum it can send without alerting Jin. The good news is that it contained the memories, the goal of his existence, and a tiny atom of its existence.
It used the rest as a cannon. It shot the small shard with enough velocity to break space and time, and, most importantly, to send the shard through a tiny hole in the gates of hell that was left from the last time Lucifer got bored and decided to leave hell.
"Thank you, Lucifer, and your daddy issues," thought the monstrosity to itself as its consciousness faded.
What the monstrosity did was a big gamble. After all, such a small amount of [Existence] will not be able to sustain its consciousness.
And so, it was betting on appearing somewhere that has a lot of energy. Sadly, its wishes did not come true.
---
In a large city as big as three Australias, in a dark alley filled with garbage, a tear in space and time suddenly manifested, and a palm-sized transparent ball appeared.
At the same time, a gate of the underworld opened in the same place. A figure clad in a robe, with its head covered in a hood while holding a black scythe, stepped out of it.
It looked at the transparent orb with fascination before holding it and throwing it in the gate.
"The rules are clear," it thought to itself. "The more transparent the soul, the more pure it is." After completing its task, the shinigami vanished from existence.
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In a dark, dark world, hundreds of millions of orbs floated in the darkness like it was a big sea.
The orbs ranged in sizes, colors, and auras.
Some were as large as a house, and some as small as an ant. Some were as dark as the surroundings, some as white as snow, and some as transparent as tainted glass. Some of the orbs had the same size or color, yet all of them had different auras—well, all besides one.
A singular palm-sized crystal-clear ball floated higher than the rest. It had no aura whatsoever, as if it didn't exist. The only thing that made it seem alive was the enormous amount of energy it devoured.
This was the monstrosity's soul, recovering its existence.
After an unknown amount of time, it finally stopped. Then, out of nowhere, a hand grabbed it.
---
A river that spans hundreds of infinities could be seen. In it, hundreds of souls were getting washed, each held by a hand.
Then, the previous hand suddenly appeared out of nowhere and washed the monstrosity's soul.
After hundreds of unsuccessful attempts at whatever it was doing, the hand gave up.
It grabbed the soul and carried it to be judged.
Now, now, can we see our friend getting judged? Wouldn't it ruin the story to know all the "fun" the monstrosity had as a demon?
Hahaha...
That was not funny.
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Back on earth.
It's quite a mess here. After all, ever since a certain someone's fight destroyed the first floor of hell in an attempt to run using the gates of hell, the monsters in the first floor of hell, which was called "Avernous," were let loose to destroy the humans on earth. After all, although the monstrosity, due to being a high demon, could not break through the wall to escape, the normal beasts did not have such restrictions.
And, like usual, heaven helped these puny things called humans and spread mana in the lower dimension.
A/N: I will be referring to earth and the rest of the universe as the lower dimension and heaven and hell as the upper dimension.
And so, humans started awakening.
Awakening can do many, many things. It can range from a simple change of hair color to being able to shoot lasers from your eyes to reviving the dead.
And, of course, they have used rankings from F to X to rank awakeners.
And with superpowers in our modern world, there will be unorthodox factions, orthodox factions, and cults.
Today, we will focus on cults.
Cults are weird. They can be as benevolent as a Buddha for a second, then as ruthless as a devil the next.
They are a faction that does everything for power, and by everything, I mean everything.
They can make a contract with a devil and then kill him the next second if it affects their endless pursuit of power. The price of their actions doesn't matter to them. After all, whoever dies is weak.
The problem with this organization is that, like every other cult, they worship something.
And it's not strength but a being they call the monstrosity.
But lately, they have been in decline. No one knows why, but everyone is happy to get rid of those wretched maniacs.
Now, you might have guessed it already, but let me tell you. The monstrosity will be reborn in one of these cults. This one is called "Cania."
In a bunker deep underground, on a remote island, inside an underground hospital, the cries of infants could be heard.
In one of the rooms was a woman. This woman was dead.
But if we ignore that, we will see that she is quite a beauty. Her fair skin was as white as paper... You know what, never mind. Let's just ignore her. After all, what will she do for us?
In her hands was a child. The child was... not dead. Strangely enough, it was silent, not making a sound. And even weirder was its dark purple hair reaching its waist and its completely transparent pupils. Its expression was cold, yet in a baby's face, it looked quite adorable.
You might have already guessed it, but this is the monstrosity—or, as it will from now on be called, Asmodeus.
"Have I been reincarnated an orphan?"
Thought Asmodeus to himself.
"Such fool luck."
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