freenovelworld Chapter 132. This Is Not His Home
Chapter 132. This Is Not His Home
The shadow demon’s slaughter left no corpses for the giants to revive.Or rather, it devoured them all itself.
Besides Antler, the monk and Red, revived by Antler, were also torn apart and consumed by the shadow demon.
It excelled at handling revived undead, precisely targeting their hearts and heads.
A single, deft strike killed them instantly, with the practiced elegance of a diner cracking a crab shell.
Watching the shadow demon melt into liquid, dripping through the door’s hole back into the shadow pool beneath him, Aiwass asked curiously, “Does killing and devouring in the dream world nourish you?”
“Of course.”
The shadow demon’s voice rumbled low, like a lion’s growl.
“These are easier to digest.
These lives are illusions conjured by the Pillar Gods’ power.
Humans serve as demons’ sacrifices and sustenance because they’re directly influenced by the Serpent Father and the Eternal Self, just as the Supreme Sky affects giants, the Candlekeeper affects elves, and Twilight affects the undead.
Humans innately have aptitude for Transcendence and Love Paths, varying in strength.
“Human desire for transcendence fuels demons.
But it requires digestion.
In the dream world, these entities—your illusory bodies and other lives, like the giants—appear human but are true demons, our kin too weak for self-awareness.
Though this ritual isn’t crafted by the Serpent Father, which is a pity, eating them doesn’t make me stronger.
But for taste, they’re decent little cookies.”
Aiwass understood.
It was like farming a dungeon with a beast of sin to gain attribute experience.
Demons could grow by consuming others of their kind.
All living things in dream-world rituals acted with intelligence and rules because they were demons mimicking specific individuals.
Their power was false, temporarily granted by the Pillar Gods.
Like ghosts unaware of their death.
No wonder the Nine Pillar Gods could easily craft “dungeons.”
They didn’t build worlds from scratch but imported historical fragments—a few hours long, confined to a small area, granting temporary life and intellect to specific figures.
These were “demon-shaped AIs,” with adjustable settings.
Under the Pillar Gods’ influence, outcomes could diverge from true history, creating “alternate possibilities.”
Their NPC-like behavior stemmed from being NPCs—or knowing their role and playing dumb.
This wasn’t a game or script but a ritual, an experiment, a sandbox—building a simulated environment, introducing nine variables, and observing the outcome.
The assigned identities and point-based tasks were incentives to spur action, preventing wasted simulations.
It might also be a screening process, inserting people of the Nine Paths to filter them.
The latter seemed more likely.
In Aiwass’s two rituals, the historical prototypes didn’t involve all Nine Paths.
In the first, Sherlock’s “newsboy” and the knight’s “inspector” were likely minor or irrelevant to the historical murder of the Alexanders.
This second ritual was clearer—historically, all nine bodies should belong to Authority Path warriors.
A knight of the Authority Path couldn’t exist in the Supreme Sky’s era, as that Path didn’t yet exist.
Their supernatural powers shouldn’t function in this simulation.
Strange.
The Pillar Gods seemed to have a purpose but didn’t care deeply about outcomes.
Low-tier rituals were delegated to apostles, suggesting less concern for results, yet they meticulously crafted dungeons and tasks.
Perhaps answers awaited Aiwass at higher-tier rituals hosted by the Pillar Gods themselves.
“Should we find the Holy Lance now?”
Lily’s voice came from behind Aiwass, lost in thought.
“Haven’t we already advanced?”
“Of course,” Aiwass replied, setting aside his musings with a light smile.
“But I don’t fully grasp this ritual’s scope.
Winning blindly would leave me unsatisfied.
Advancement chances are limited—this is a rare opportunity to live a piece of history.”
“But where’s the Holy Lance?
We’re running out of time for a full search.”
“No need.
I know where it is.”
Aiwass said, “You’ve been through three storage rooms, right?
They’re at the corners, aren’t they?”
“Yes.”
Lily confirmed.
“Southeast, southwest, and northwest.
We’re in the west now.
Knight’s group argued in the south, and I… and Antler started in the east.”
Aiwass analyzed, “This is a temple, so its layout follows rules.
The east-west structure aligns in a line, with no northward paths.
The building’s roughly a triangle, pointed south, with storage rooms at its ends.
The task mentioned giants visit the storage rooms randomly.
If their bedroom is northernmost, the distances to each room differ.
Giants, like bears, hibernate and prefer shorter routes, making the south safer.
“But only the southern area has a lamp.
Giants lack night vision, and a lit lamp at that height means they were there recently.
We’re on the second day of capture—someone was likely eaten yesterday, probably from the southern room.
I assume the giants’ bedroom is equidistant from all three storage rooms, placing it at the triangle’s center.”
Yet Aiwass found something odd.
The Supreme Sky’s holy number was seven.
But the triangular structure, three storage rooms, and sparse candlelight resembled the Candlekeeper’s temple.
Avalon’s Candlekeeper Cathedral had a similar south-pointing triangle.
Giants lacked night vision, yet the corridors were pitch-black.
Could the giants have deliberately dimmed the temple, making it less radiant?
A Candlekeeper temple should be brilliantly lit.
If too dim, its sanctity could be compromised.
The giant couple, having killed a Devotion Path apostle, were likely apostles themselves.
Devotion apostles, like the Candlekeeper, were benevolent, rarely attacking other Pillar Gods’ apostles, even those of the Serpent Father or Amber.
They’d never invade another’s temple to attack.
“If this couple is warlike and powerful, they’d have more relics than just the Holy Lance.
Likewise, their reward wouldn’t be just a magical cauldron, and we wouldn’t have a task to kill a giant with the Lance.
When I noticed the layout mimicked the Candlekeeper Cathedral, I hypothesized this was originally its temple, seized through numbers and ambush.
That explains killing a Devotion apostle and keeping their weapon.”
Aiwass speculated, “If this temple was stolen, the cauldron’s presence makes sense.
Killing another apostle is an act of supreme violence, worthy of the Supreme Sky’s reward.
A cauldron only the Holy Lance can destroy is essentially a relic.”
“But these are guesses, right?” Lily said softly.
“Correct, but easy to verify.”
Aiwass replied, “After Thunder’s scream, I set a plan.
The task noted loud noises wake giants.
That scream was loud—I was nearby, navigating by the ‘left wall’ rule, and heard it.
It should’ve drawn the giants, but ten minutes after, no footsteps came.
I guessed they were sleeping, needing time to wake.
“I had to consider the worst case—one giant went to check, leaving the other awake in the bedroom, making it riskier to pass.
The task assumes we sneak in for the Lance.
Thunder’s scream disrupted that.
So I deliberately crashed the door here, making a noise slightly less than Thunder’s.
The west and south are far apart.
If one giant went south earlier, another noise from the west should draw the remaining one.”
This would lure both giants from their bedroom.
As Aiwass and Lily whispered, heavy footsteps rumbled.
They hid immediately.
Soon, a door’s handle turned, and it opened.
Out stepped a male giant with waterfall-like reddish-brown beard and bear-like red fur, resembling a human-faced gorilla or bear.
His mountain-like frame had rock-hard, dark-red muscles.
His back hunched, arms long enough to reach his knees.
One hand held a massive lantern, the other gripped the door handle high above.
His eyes were huge but drooped with age, like heavy curtains needing a pole to lift.
Aiwass’s guess was confirmed the moment the giant appeared.
At thirteen or fourteen meters, the giant’s throat aligned awkwardly with the door handle’s height.
This wasn’t his home.
Aiwass even recognized him.
As a boss, he was Aspervaton, Giant Chieftain, a final boss in version 3.4 of .
He had another identity—future apostle of the Love domain, brother to Skadi, the Valkyrie of the Love domain’s Shadow Sky Division, pulled down by the Ritual of the Ouroboros.