Chapter 297 - Pitiful Woman
Chapter 297 Pitiful Woman
The secret room was about hundreds of square meters. The thick walls were made of hard black bricks, and the four walls had demon characters engraved on them. Several burning magic torches emitted light, but they could not illuminate this secret room at all. There was a weird, dark atmosphere in the room, and a strange force field spread over the room, seemingly protecting and covering this place like a barrier.
Roy controlled the Demon Eye and did not dare to get too close. He found a corner where he could observe and let it hide.
The secret room was currently empty. There was only a giant demon skeleton on one of the walls. This skeleton’s demon horns were still there, but its face had three hollow eyes, and the third eye was at the center of its forehead. Roy did not know what race this demon was before it died.
Xeron walked all the way to the demon skull. After arriving in front of it, he stretched out his hand and put it in the skull’s mouth. Roy did not know what mechanism he activated, but a rumbling sound came, and the ground in the middle of the secret room slowly opened!
Then a circular altar slowly rose from the ground.
When the Demon Eye conveyed this scene to Roy, he could not help but widen his eyes in surprise.
The circular altar that rose from below had a pentagram engraved on it, and in the middle of the altar was a rectangular stone bed! A pregnant woman with her four limbs bound by magic runes was lying quietly on the stone bed.
What surprised Roy was this woman. She was dressed gorgeously, seemed of noble status, and had burgundy hair!
Roy suddenly thought of a person–Isabel, queen of the kingdom of Erathia!
Although Roy had not seen Queen Isabel with his own eyes, he had heard that she had signature burgundy hair. He then recalled that Benia had once said that her sister, Biara, had transformed into Queen Isabel and was in the kingdom of Erathia. So in that instant, Roy immediately confirmed the identity of this woman lying on the stone bed —the real Queen Isabel of Erathia!
No wonder. Since the queen in Erathia is a fake, then the real one was abducted by the demons…
However, according to the information Roy obtained… Wasn’t Isabel’s husband killed by the demons? In that case, what’s with her big belly?!
Could it be…
Roy suddenly realized what was going on!
The child in Isabel’s stomach isn’t the seed of her human husband but… the seed of a demon! And if I’m right, it’s the seed of Demon Lord Kha-Beleth!
Roy finally knew what point in time he was at after coming to this world. It was the time when the ‘Dark Messiah’ was born!
After the unpredicted lunar eclipse previously, numerous demons once again escaped Sheogh, came to the ground, and launched the war to destroy Steadwick. That was when Roy came to this world four years ago. Roy had returned to the Abyss after tricking Xeron to his death and leaving the Dragon Balls as coordinates, so he did not know what happened afterward during the war.
In fact, in this war, although Erathia had united with its allies to repel the demons’ attack and save Steadwick, its queen, Isabel, was secretly replaced. The succubus Biara impersonated Isabel and stayed in Erathia, while the demons captured the real Queen Isabel. All of this was secretly planned by Demon Lord Kha-Beleth.
Since there was an imposter, the Erathians naturally did not know the truth, so they could not come to the rescue of their queen. Thus, Isabel was imprisoned for a long time in Eeofol, the kingdom of demons.
In fact, in the seventy-sixth year after the death of the Seventh Dragon Sar-Elam, one of his disciples, the prophet named Sar-Shazzar, had prophesied:
Ten centuries shall the fortress stand, walls of spirit wrapped in walls of fire.
And horned lords shall bow their heads, to one not yet born, of the darkest sire.
One century of blood and strife, the moon shall darken, and none know why.
The resting place at last is found, of the Seventh who soared so high.
Last daughter of a forlorn line, shall guide him into history.
Beneath the crypts prophecies clash, the war of ancient enemies.
As Sar-Elam’s disciple, Sar-Shazzar was also rather famous, so the prophecy he made had been highly regarded by the world. However, Ashan was a world full of disasters and frequent wars. In the past thousand years, the records of this prophecy gradually faded, and not many people remembered it.
Only some ancient elders who had survived from that era might still remember this prophecy, but there were already very few of them…
Only Sheogh demons remembered clearly. Most of the powerful demons were imprisoned in Sheogh and could not come out, so naturally, they would not die in war. Especially for demon lords like Kha-Beleth, their long lives and the unforgettable thought of wanting to escape made them remember this prophecy. They believed that the demons would stay trapped in Sheogh for at most ten centuries, which was exactly a thousand years.
And the facts had proven that it was indeed so. As time passed, the power of the seal barrier was weakening.
Through their interpretation of the prophecy, the demon lords had realized that demons could not destroy the seal barrier set by Sar-Elam. Thus, they planned to create a half-human half-demon hybrid child and then nurture him so that this Child of Taboo with demon power but a human body would help them break the seal and completely liberate all of Sheogh.
When Kha-Beleth was finally able to pass through the seal and appear in Ashan with most of his power, the demons immediately realized that the prophecy had come true! Therefore, all the demon lords unanimously decided that Kha-Beleth would go out and carry out this prophecy.
To create a demon-human hybrid child, he had to find a human woman to give birth to this child for him. Without a doubt, he chose Isabel…
The reason why he chose Isabel was that this woman was born during the fifth lunar eclipse, a woman of the lunar eclipse! When she was born, he controlled the demons to leave a mark on her secretly…
After Isabel grew up, the demons took advantage of the sixth lunar eclipse to launch an attack. Their plan succeeded, and they successfully captured and replaced Isabel.
However, Sheogh demons were still creatures from another world. They stayed in this world only because of their contract with Urgash and the seal of Sar-Elam. If they wanted to have a Child of Taboo with a being of this world, they had to find a woman of the solar eclipse.
A woman of the solar eclipse was the best choice. The illusion demon César that Roy had hunted down was a hybrid born with the help of a woman of the solar eclipse. Unfortunately, it was difficult to find a woman of the solar eclipse of the right age. In the past twenty years, there had not been a solar eclipse in Ashan, so he could only choose the second-best option, a woman of the lunar eclipse, Isabel.
However, a woman of the lunar eclipse had a flaw that could not be ignored. Compared to a woman of the solar eclipse, the chances of a woman of the lunar eclipse becoming pregnant with a demon were not high!
But this was not a big problem for Kha-Beleth. The quality was not high, so he could make up for it with quantity… Therefore, this period of being imprisoned was absolutely terrible, painful, and desperate memories for Isabel…
After Kha-Beleth’s hard work and diligent efforts, Isabel finally became pregnant with Kha-Beleth’s child. Logically speaking, she should have needed a normal pregnancy time to give birth to this half-human half-demon hybrid.
However, Kha-Beleth clearly could not wait any longer. The other demon lords of Sheogh were constantly urging him, so he chose an unconventional method-extracting the lives and souls of sacrifices through a sacrificial ritual to supply the fetus in Isabel’s stomach to accelerate the birth.
Of course, even accelerated, it still needed time, and this time was at least a month! This was because he had to ensure that this Child of Taboo had strong enough talent and physique.
From ten months of pregnancy to one month before giving birth, this time was ten times shorter… Roy combined all the information he obtained and figured out this possibility. So he immediately understood why Xeron had said that it would take another eighteen days when discussing with the other demon heroes. In other words, not long after Roy entered the Desert of Death, the demons had just begun the sacrificial ritual.
This also explained why the demons did not have information about Roy’s appearance… Because from then on, they had shrunken all their defenses and tried to ensure that the sacrificial ritual would not be disturbed.
As for what Xeron mentioned, that the second phase of the plan would take twenty years, perhaps it was because it would take twenty years for this Child of Taboo to reach adulthood after being born. After all, although the Child of Taboo had great power, he still needed time to grow. Moreover, it was unlikely that Kha-Beleth would be able to accelerate his growth. He might even need to nurture the feelings this child had for demons…
The illusion demon César once said that the reason why half-human half-demon hybrids were known as Children of Taboo was that they would often turn to the side of humanity due to emotional factors and turn around to deal with demons. There was no reason why Kha-Beleth would not guard against this situation from happening…
Through the Demon Eye, Roy looked at the scene in the secret room. His eyes flickered as he pondered and figured out everything.
He thought that Xeron had raised Isabel’s altar to offer another sacrifice, but unexpectedly, Xeron half-knelt in front of the stone bed and placed his hand on the pentagram below. He input magic power while softly chanting in the demon language.
Due to the distance, Roy could not clearly hear what Xeron was saying, but not long after, a ray of light suddenly rose from the pentagram!
The light of the magic formation enveloped Isabel’s stone bed. And above the stone bed, a huge illusory shadow suddenly appeared bit by bit above Isabel’s body!
It was a half-body illusion of a demon. He was wearing a fiery red armor and a full-face helmet, revealing only a pair of blazing eyes. Just looking at these eyes made him feel a soul-shaking shudder… Kha-Beleth! This shadow is definitely Demon Sovereign Kha-Beleth! Roy instantly realized. Then he made the invisible Demon Eye shrink back, hiding in the darkness in the corner.
Clearly, Xeron was contacting Kha-Beleth, and the reason he used Isabel’s altar was probably that Kha-Beleth was very concerned about her situation, so he had been watching over her closely.
In other words, Isabel was now protected by the power of Kha-Beleth…
This is a little troublesome. Roy thought. It’s not easy to do anything…