Chapter 23

"Hello human" said the demon with a wide smile as it looked at me, its red eyes glowing with interest at the specimen in front of it. It couldn't believe that it had been lucky enough to come across the species known as humans on its way back to its territory in Derzen. Humans were a species that they usually came across when the players in the tower failed to complete the requirements to advance a stage in the tutorial and they were usually so weak and easy to kill but the demon Dirval could tell that the human in front of him was different, he was much stronger than the players in the tutorial and maybe even the players in the lower levels of the tower. Dirval couldn't help but wonder why this human was on the fifth circle of the underworld when he clearly had the strength to complete the tutorial all on his own. The other way for a player to arrive to a circle of the underworld is when they reach the seventieth floor of the tower and are given the chance to travel to the underworld, but most players choose not to do so and the ones that do mostly end up dead after encountering the demons and monsters here but also due to the lack of food and water.

It is common knowledge that players are unable to eat most monsters due to the toxins that exist within their bodies which would react extremely negatively with the human digestive system and leading to extreme diarrhea and fevers which are extremely dangerous for people whose everyday lives consist of constantly fighting monsters. There are times when it can even directly cause the death of the person and hence human beings aren't be able to survive in the underworld because every plant and animal here is extremely toxic to human beings. Even the water was deadly enough to burn their insides.

"But this human is still alive" thought Dirval as he stared at the human in interest. The dark mana inside his body stirred with excitement making his eyes glow dark red in color.

Dirval could sense holy mana/divinity inside the human and hence thought that the human was either a healer, mage, archer or tanker but he deduced that he couldn't be a healer otherwise he wouldn't have been able to fight the monsters in Azaelon. Human healers tended to possess powerful healing skills but little to no attack skills and in a place like the underworld, lacking an attack skill is the same as acquiring a death sentence. There was the possibility of him being a mage since he had a lot of mana however Dirval couldn't see a mage's staff or mage artifacts on the human, so he eliminated that option as well which only left the classes of archer or tanker.

If the human was an archer, he would at least have a quiver of arrows on his back as well as a bow but instead he had spikes which ruled out the possibility of that as well which only left one option, a tanker. A tanker was a class that had far superior defense and health compared to other classes which would explain how he survived this long, and they were also able to sometimes cast skills with the essence of holy magic which would explain the divinity in his body however that didn't explain how he was able to satisfy his hunger and thirst.

'I will find that out later,' thought Dirval as he gauged the strength of the human.

This meeting was far more interesting than the activities that he was carrying out in preparation for the one of the greatest events that would go down in the history of demon kind and if he was right, this human could be of some use to his grand plan.

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"Hello, who are you?" I asked as I shook his hand.

"My name is Dirval, a mid-rank demon that rules over the Derzen territory in the kingdom of Azael."

Shit!....A mid rank demon! No wonder my senses were on high alert warning me of imminent danger in Dirval's presence. My power was currently on par with a low rank demon and there was a huge difference in the power gap between a low rank demon and a mid-rank demon. Even if fifty low rank demons were to attack a mid-rank demon, they would barely be able to leave a scratch on it before being torn to pieces. This was the difference in the strength of ranks. And now I was currently meeting a mid-rank demon who could be ten or a hundred times stronger than me. My hands started trembling.

"Is the human afraid of me," thought Dirval as he watched in amusement but what Dirval and even I had gotten wrong was the reason for why I was trembling at that moment. After a few seconds I immediately recognized the emotion I was feeling as I had experienced it once before, it wasn't fear that I was feeling but ….. ECSTASY! I had experienced the same feeling when I was hunting down the Monisars whom my body and senses had automatically determined as prey and now I was experiencing the same feeling when looking at Dirval. It would seem that my body had automatically deemed Dirval as an opponent worth killing.

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Dirval sensed the bloodlust that I was emitting and instinctively backed off as he readied himself for an attack. He had never experienced such bloodlust in any of the humans that he had killed before however the bloodlust was strangely familiar to the bloodlust of a monster that he had once barely managed to escape decades ago when he was a low-ranking demon. The beast that he had met then was a Lycanrin which had slaughtered one hundred and fifty low rank demons in their territory before finally being killed by his elder brother Mirval who was a high-class Mid-rank demon at the time at the cost of his life. It was a monster that had truly devasted them as its image still remained in his head even to this day and now the human in front of him was emitting the same type of bloodlust.

Was this creature before him really human?

Dirval had spent the last ten years after that incident training constantly until he evolved into the high-class Mid-rank demon that he was today in order to ensure that the same thing didn't happen again and now the thing that he had dreaded for a long time was happening right now.

"Based on his bloodlust and body's presence, the odds of me winning are slightly lower than seventy percent" thought Dirval after estimating his chances of beating the human in front of him. It was doable but even so Dirval didn't dare attempt to attack the human. Dirval had always lived his life making every decision and action after running multiple scenarios in his head and even then he would only act if he possessed at the very least a 90% probablity of success. It was was why he was able to become a high-class Mid-rank demon after only a few decades unlike most demons who took even hundreds of years to do so. That plus his high talent.

Besides he also had to try to minimize the loss of life of his guards as training a quality, powerful and loyal guard was quite difficult. Especially when the guard is a demon, creatures known for their deceptive and trickery capabilities. Dirval raised his hands in a sign of surrender