Several days passed.
It was still the same inn, the same room.
With a respectful expression, Sarah handed over a spatial ring to Orsaga.
It had taken her days to retrieve the precious contents hidden in a secret location—resources so valuable they could rival the wealth of a small kingdom.
Even for her cult, amassing such wealth would have taken more than a hundred years, not to mention the constant risk of being hunted down.
So although she had completed the transaction, her heart still ached.
If it were up to her, she would've preferred to seize the statue by force, having the church's two demigod-level powerhouses gang up on Orsaga. But considering his display of casually snapping a legendary powerhouse's neck with one hand, they had wisely chosen peace.
To them, killing a legendary-level enemy wasn't hard—just time-consuming. But killing one as easily as choking a chicken? That was a different story.
Even with divine blessings, they felt they'd likely end up getting their faces pounded in.
And it was precisely because that dark god understood his subordinates' limits that he didn't dare push things further. Otherwise, even if he had divine patience, he wouldn't have been able to stomach Orsaga.
After all, patience is directly proportional to the enemy's strength!
When facing Orsaga in person, no matter how much one might detest him deep down…
They'd inevitably find themselves growing calm and composed in his presence.
Even notoriously hot-tempered demons would suddenly become understanding and considerate!
Orsaga used his spiritual power to scan the contents of the spatial ring via its spatial coordinates, confirming both the quantity and quality of the goods.
The other party had fulfilled every condition he'd laid out.
And since he prided himself on honest dealings…
Even someone like Orsaga—who was notorious for fleecing people like pigs and charging interest like a loan shark—decided not to make things difficult for her.
In this sense, Orsaga was a rare, honest type of demon.
Sure, his extortion was practically daylight robbery—eating his enemies' flesh and drinking their blood wouldn't be too far-fetched.
But with a flick of his slender right hand and a snap of his fingers...
A beautifully crafted crystal statue, containing the ritual for summoning an Dark god, silently appeared before Sarah.
Seeing this, the worry that Orsaga might double-cross her finally eased a little.
'At least he keeps his word…' she thought.
She quickly stowed the statue in her own spatial ring.
"Thank you for your cooperation. I won't trouble you any further."
Without another word, and clearly eager to leave, Sarah turned and exited the room.
Every time she was near Orsaga, she felt deeply unsettled—an instinctual, visceral sense of her life being in danger.
Once the door closed behind her and her presence vanished, the elven woman curled up in Orsaga's arms glanced briefly at the ring in his hand, but said nothing. She simply resumed the conversation that had been interrupted earlier, her voice sweet and flirtatious:
"I know a great elven restaurant up in the northern district—they serve a famous fruit banquet made with all sorts of rare ingredients. Let's go there this afternoon, okay?"
"Sure."
Though not a fan of vegetarian fare, Orsaga agreed, figuring he could use a change of pace.
Then, under her astonished gaze, he casually applied a bit of pressure to the ring in his hand.
With the force of hundreds of millions of tons, he crushed the priceless spatial ring into dust.
The moment the miniature space inside was destroyed, an invisible burst of spatial turbulence exploded outward like the sharpest blades, slicing through the room indiscriminately.
The danger was palpable. The elven woman instinctively moved to dodge.
But before she could act, she saw Orsaga calmly smother the spatial turbulence with a single hand, brute-forcing it out of existence.
At the same time, a massive quantity of soul crystals poured from the destroyed ring like dumplings into a boiling pot. Before they could hit the ground, Orsaga had already absorbed them, converting their essence into nourishment.
With a wave of euphoria sweeping through him, numbers in a column labeled "Evolution Points" on a system interface—visible only to Orsaga—began rapidly ticking upward.
But instead of strengthening his body directly, most of this power was stored away.
That's because within the rank of [High Demon], Orsaga had already reached his limit—both physically and spiritually. To progress further, he would need to ascend to [Greater Rank Demon], expanding his upper limit. And that was something this world's consciousness was not about to allow.
So, not wanting to be struck down by a divine lightning bolt, Orsaga shelved his advancement plans for now.
Though mildly annoyed, he had no intention of returning to the Abyss just yet.
After all, high-magic worlds like this one—where the top-tier powerhouses were tied up in a stalemate—were hard to come by.
Not only were resources abundant, but even the souls here were far more nutritious than those from lower-tier worlds.
Even ordinary people from this world had souls that were multiple times more flavorful and nourishing than those from the first world Orsaga had ever traveled through.
From the air they breathed to the food they ate and the water they drank, the difference was fundamental.
And more importantly, even among humans, the origin of the species mattered. In some worlds, humans evolved from monkeys. In others, they were descended from creator gods or advanced alien beings. The disparity in their foundational essence was like comparing factory rejects to custom-made luxury products.
This world's inhabitants clearly belonged to the latter category—highly evolved with strong innate spiritual power, far beyond mere mortal flesh.
That's why so many powerful beings could rise here, and even hope to ascend to godhood.
Once all the soul crystals had been absorbed…
Orsaga opened his unscathed palm and gently caressed the elven woman's soft cheek.
With a smile, he said, "A merchant guild has invited me to a banquet tomorrow. You can come with me."
Feeling the silky smoothness of his fingers against her skin, the elven woman finally snapped out of her daze. "Such terrifying power... this is the first time I've seen a demigod as strong as you…"
Orsaga shook his head and casually corrected her, "I'm not a demigod. Just legendary rank."
"…Sure," she replied, though her tone clearly didn't believe him.
Orsaga could only sigh. He had told the truth—if she didn't believe him, that was her problem.
That said, he knew there were issues with his statement.
Legendary = High-rank Demon
Demigod = Greater-Rank Demon
Ordinary God = Archdemon
Powerful God = Demon Lord
This formula was a rough approximation at best—it just looked neat on paper.
In reality, it was extremely vague.
The Abyssal power system couldn't be directly compared with this world's hierarchy. That's why even the Demon Lord Ignarok was still stuck in the Abyss, while his main forces could fight this world's gods, even the powerful ones, to a standstill.
Different world systems had different standards for power classification.
A few overlapping levels didn't mean anything.
For example, beneath the "Legendary" rank in this world were ten incremental levels, from Level 1 to Level 10. Meanwhile, in the Abyss, below "High Rank Demon" were only "Lesser Demon," "Minor Demon," and "Juviline Demon." There was no way to equate the two.
Some worlds had thousands or even tens of thousands of distinct cultivation stages—yet a single High Rank Demon could sweep through them like slaughtering pigs.
And this wasn't even rare.
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T/N:
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