Chapter 453 Demon Origins
"Demons, huh? I guess I can help you with that." Gold wondered as he looked through the mansion windows and saw somebody that could use a push in life even though he was literally an immortal.
It was none other than Lord Wolte.
The depressed slug now aided the Werejackals by killing some very annoying pests that had invaded the home instance. There had not been any such pest initially, but the System introduced it and isolated it to part of the crops the werejackals were growing because the crops ironically needed the pests to survive.
The more the pest bit and feasted on the crops, the more resilient the seeds of the said crops would become. However, there was a limit to how much damage the pest could do to these unique crops before it was considered destroyed. A balance had to be struck, so Lord Wolte was sent in as the pest terminator, killing the pests that were already out of control.
With its slug's body who was able to emit the same fragrance as the crops, the insectoid pests assumed that Lord Wolte was part of crops and got attracted to it. This allowed the System to bring in a higher and varied number of insects to test the limit of the unique crops to the point even Lord Wolte found it to be staggering. This was so that the System could grow one valuable resource.
Oil.
When the oil plant matured, the roots of the oil crops would secrete oil into the underground where they had already placed an oil deposit (the size of a tanker) to catch that black gold. In the beginning, it would only be able to secrete 1ml of oil, but the seeds that bloomed afterwards allowed it to emit an exponentially increasing amount.
The cycle continued until the current iteration of seeds could secrete 1 litre of oil per week. Lord Wolte had been eating those insectoid pests to make sure that the crops would not die from being bitten and the werejackals encouraged him further by thanking him for making such an important contribution to the ecosystem.
Initially, he had been quite excited to finally be part of something bigger, but in recent days, he wished that he could do more than just eating pests since the System had already created a few clones of him to do the same thing when the oil fields got wider and larger.
However, the real reason why he was so disappointed was because he did not even have a ride to his name in the WunderPanda Theme Park. Even the Minotaurs who weren't featured yet in the dungeon instances received a mechanical bull rodeo ride in the Theme Park and Jin was selling soft toy versions of Moloch puppets as the prize. He couldn't get any sadder that Moloch received more attention than him.
Still, Lord Wolte did not know how much of a help he would be when he gave the System a breakdown analysis of how his body worked for it to create similar clones like him. The market for oil was tremendous, especially in Jin's world.
The System did not need it because it was omnipotent enough to power itself up. (Though it would be more efficient if it had the mechanical brain to increase its processing speed.) Nonetheless, the System was thinking long term and considered extending the werejackal's farming instance to incorporate larger oil fields, else a multi storey oil producing farm.
In terms of expenses, it would definitely help Jin too especially when he and Qiu Yue needed the extra dungeon dollars to get the Dungeon Fortress City going. The System had already calculated their expenses for just the first year and noted that if they could sell the oil, it would benefit them greatly. The prognosis might look decent for the future, but first, they have to survive that critical sapling stage of city building thus every extra dollar counts.
"Yo, Lord Wolte. How's the pest extermination going?" Gold came down with a group of (armoured) entourage with him behind as he asked Lord Wolte about his well being.
"Eh, could be better, you know. If I positioned myself from Section 1.2 and mowed down the pest from that point, I might have been a few minutes faster than yesterday." Lord Wolte answered as he looked somewhat intrigued at the armour fellows behind him.
"Ah yea, I have some good news for you. These are the new batch of monste- *cough* humans that came in and it just so happens that they're practitioners of the dark arts." Before Gold could say anything else, Lord Wolte's expression immediately perked up a lot.
"Practitioners of Dark Arts? So which demon do you worship? Baal? Diablos? Mephisto?" Lord Wolte wanted to share his own personal knowledge since he had been lonely and feeling useless for some time. Gold guessed it was the right move to push these Dark Templars on to him.
"Actually, we do not know the name of the demon that we worship because he hasn't given us any name," Zieg confessed with a bit of embarrassment.
"Hahaha! it's actually more common than you might think! These kind of demons usually try to act all high and mighty, but in fact, they are just little brats who feel happy that some humans happened to be summoning them out. Or maybe, they think that you are incompetent enough to know its name. Come now, let me see-" Lord Wolte was suddenly pulled back by Gold for a moment. (Gold used his magical powers to do so since it's quite impossible to do that physically.)
"Wolte! They are from a different world! Theirs might not even be the same demons that you are familiar with." Gold whispered to Wolte.
"What?! I don't think it really differs that much between worlds. Demons are arrogant pricks that want to be acknowledged." Wolte proclaimed with certainty before mumbling a few words which Gold needed to strain his ears to catch them. "…even myself…"
"Regardless! I would like to see the kind of demons they summon." Wolte told Gold as he waited for them to start the process. Needless to say, they did the same chants as when they tried to surround Sebastia, but this time it was a vastly longer incantation since they were not in a hurry.
After all this time they were asking their contracted demon to come out. The circle that the dark templars formed turned purplish and then red, which later shone quite brightly to reveal the emergence of the demon the Dark Templars had made a pact with.
Horns rose up from the summoning ritual, and that was when Wolte immediately called out the name of demon even before the demon had fully descended.
"Baphomet!!!" Lord Wolte shouted just half way through the summoning, Baphomet was in shock hearing his name spoken so clearly when he knew that he had not once given a name out to any dark arts practitioner at all.
"Wolte?!?!!?" Baphomet roared in return, just as surprised.
"EHH??!" Gold was speechless when Baphomet also appeared to know Lord Wolte's name when he even barely got out of the circle. "What the hell?!"
"Hell it is." Lord Wolte chuckled as he waited for an old friend of his to be summoned fully. The Dark Templars did not know that their benefactor was friends with this particular slug tending the fields.
"I …just can't even…." Gold had wrapped his mind hard on the matter, and unless there was some ritual or spell that could transcend worlds, there should be no way the two demons should know each other's existence less being friends.
"Hahahah! That look on your face is priceless!! Hahahahah!" Wolte laughed as he asked Gold if he could contact Yun in any way.
"What's the matter?" Yun came by to see a number of new faces, most of which she was aware of. She was briefly informed by the System, except for the demon that was standing in the farms. Upon closer inspection, System had notified that the demon's existence was permissible in the instance.
"Huh…even the demon they summoned is also partially taken into possession by the System already. No wonder the System allowed it to be here with strict supervision." Yun thought to herself as she noticed the processing capabilities of the System was third in priority in this particular instance at this moment. The first was still Jin who partially recovered and the second was working with Kraft to get more information about Ryuli.
"I just needed to ask you a simple question. Do the names of demons like Diablos, Baal and Mephisto exist in Master Jin's World?" Lord Wolte asked, and she nodded her head, which only served to make Gold question everything around him even more.
"Oh, I think I understand why Gold may be confused. I doubt you'd know this. The existence of the demons are both separate and at the same time singular in their entities." Yun explained as she inadvertently looked at the progress of Oil Crops.
"It might be a bit too much to take in, but the Demons can basically exist in various worlds; however, their souls can only exist in one place at one time. Think of them as having possible replacement bodies in every world that know about their existence though the moment that particular world wants to summon it, they need to sacrifice an equal or greater number of souls or resources like blood etc to have that entity to exist in their world."
"So you are saying demons are in a way some sort of immortals too? They can pop up in any world they want?" Gold questioned, and Yun nodded her way.
"Putting it very simple, the answer is yes. However, there are still conditions to be fulfilled. For example, Wolte's and Moloch's King, Baal currently exists in the Dungeon World. He has a major presence in the Dungeon World, and if someone would wish to summon him in another world, the sacrifice required should be massive, like a metropolis or equivalent for the soul to move to another place." Yun tried to explain the best as she can to the scholar.
"But if the demons were killed, their souls would lie in wait in a dimensional plane or that was what I was told until someone decides to summon them. For more information, you may want to ask Wolte or Moloch themselves." Yun explained.
"Is there no way to stop them from being summoned ever again?" Gold asked and Yun shook her head.
"There always exists a balance of good and evil. Somehow, someone in a time unknown to us, created these demons to ensure such forces would remain indefinitely balanced. For our side, Moloch and Wolte belong to the System. Someone would have to sacrifice something similar to the worth of this ever growing System or more to retrieve back one of the two. Only then could they break the Enforcement Loyalty Orders from the System." Yun cited examples to him to understand better.
"However, do note that the System is also a by product of the Will of the Heavens. Meaning, unless some guy in the heavenly plane decides to sacrifice a part of heaven to get Moloch and Wolte, it's most likely they would not be able to obtain them" Yun concluded her explanation to Gold which he appreciated deeply.
"So erm bro, it's been a long time. That girl is smoking hot though." Baphomet and Wolte were talking to each other at the sidelines while Yun gave an impromptu lecture on how the demons worked.
"Heh, you better not mess with her. The last time I tried to look underneath her, woohoo~! I got killed ten times before she let me off." Wolte cautioned Baphomet.
"So, bro, how have you been? Guess your death in the Dungeon World wasn't the worst thing to have happened to you. I mean you seem to do pretty swell, now that you have some fun with your little dark arts practitioner group to give you resources and stuff." Wolte sounded a little jealous, but Baphomet understood what he meant.
"Yeah, they've given me shit loads of items, especially this thing they call Litoride. Yo man, that's the bomb! You should give it a try once in a while. But you know what brother? I will not leave a fellow brother of mine in a wreck, especially after what Baal did to use. " Bahpomet attempted to carry Wolte up with his batwings.
"I've currently only taken the pact with this particular squad, they still have a hell lot of nubs back in their headquarters. I can introduce some of them to hook you up. That way, you can regain some strength and followers too." Baphomet generously offered to Wolte.
"You sure you to give your precious resources to this old man? Don't you want to have them for yourself?" Wolte asked.
"Hell yeah, I want them to myself brah. But you've always looked out for me and even helped me to take a hit against Baal before I've gone apeshit and stuff. So take them as thanks." Baphomet took out something similar to a cigar made out of Litoride and smoked it.
"Heck! Even I might even repledge my allegiance to you again. You were like the coolest leader ever, although a bit talkative and punny but damn~! You treated your men well. I'd love to serve under you again." Baphomet revealed as he knelt in front of Lord Wolte once more.
"You that solid? Bro, you do not know how much your gift means to me." Wolte said with visible tears sweating out from his skin.
"Yeah man! *clears throat* I Baphomet, hereby swear to be under the service of Duke Wolte. May this pledge be ever binding till our souls disintegrate!" Baphomet swore and, in that instant, Wolte himself was oozing with brightness.
Suddenly Yun got alerted that an evolution was triggered in front of them. As Jin was still unconscious at that particular point from surgery with the Sub System Users already away in the Giant World, Yun was the highest authority.
So being the only one that was able to substitute Jin for an answer, she nodded her head. "Go ahead, Jin would want his monsters to evolve anyways."
"Very well. Initiating Wolte's evolution." The System stated as it allowed the evolution procedure to proceed smoothly.