Chapter 37 : demon core.
"Narada Muni, you are here? What made you feel like visiting our realm today?" Yamraj asked in a polite and respectful manner.
"Yamraj, you know I never stay in one place. I was just passing by when I heard the words 'elemental soul' from your mouth, so I came here,"
Narad Muni explained, and then began chanting, "Narayan, Narayan."
"So, do you know something about elemental souls? If you do, then please share your knowledge with us, Narad Muni," Yamraj requested.
"Yes, even in my Book of Life and Death, there is nothing written about elemental souls. It is as if they appeared out of thin air."
Chitragupta also nodded in agreement with his lord's words.
"Narayan Narayan, O Yam Dev, maybe you don't realize how much the Earth has changed in the last 10 years," Narad Muni said with a smile.
"What do you mean…?" Yam Dev asked, raising his eyebrows. He really had no idea about this.
Narad Muni narrated to Yam Dev and Chitragupta everything that had happened on Earth. When Narad Muni finished speaking, Yam Dev said,
"Muni, nothing like this has ever happened before. There have been battles with demons and asuras in the past, but never like this. The idea of an animal becoming a mutant from blood is beyond our understanding."
"This must be some divine play of God; how could we ever understand His leela? Narayan, Narayan."
Narad Muni replied with a smile, and Yam Dev nodded in understanding.
"The first thing I understand now is that the souls of these mutant beasts are called elemental souls. But…"
He then turned toward the shepherd. "Why did that elemental beast file a case against this shepherd? What enmity was there between that elemental beast and this shepherd?"
Narad Muni explained everything that had happened between the mutant sheep and the shepherd. Hearing this, Yam Dev's head felt as if it was on fire with anger.
Then, glaring angrily at the shepherd, he said, "Hey sinner! You killed an innocent sheep that considered you its master!"
"Yamraj," the shepherd replied quickly, "that was a demon. If it hadn't killed me, I would have been killed instead."
"Don't lie, The mutant sheep healed your injured sheep and apologized for what it had done, but you were blinded by greed and brutally killed that innocent sheep. For this, I will give you a punishment in hell so severe that you could never have imagined it."
"Forgive me, Yamraj! Forgive me!"
The shepherd fell to his knees and began begging for mercy, but no one listened to his pleas.
....
Down on Earth, that king began selling information about the mutant beast's weakness to other kingdoms at very high prices.
The kingdoms bought this information for huge sums, which brought the king enormous profits.
As the kings of those kingdoms began sharing the information with their warriors, the balance gradually started to tilt in favor of the warriors against the mutant beasts.
But this did not mean that the warriors were winning more battles. Because of the divine weapons, demonic energy no longer had much effect on the mutant beasts, yet this brought some benefits as well as some losses.
The benefit was that the mutant beasts were no longer causing destruction like before and were no longer attacking villages without any reason.
The downside was that because of becoming mutants, the beasts had grown more intelligent than before some could think like humans, and some had become even smarter than humans.
And there were some beasts for whom something went wrong during the purification process with god weapons. As a result, the demonic energy completely merged with the beasts, giving birth to a new kind of creature, which came to be known as demon beasts.
The intelligence of demon beasts was like that of ordinary animals. They lived in herds, and once every year, a massive herd would launch an attack across the kingdom's borders.
The sudden emergence of the demon beasts left everyone stunned. They could not figure out how to protect their kingdom from these attacks.
Just then, someone mentioned the god weapon. Since god weapons had little effect on mutant beasts, everyone had forgotten about them.
So, after being reminded, they took it as their last hope and created a new god weapon in the form of a flag. This flag was planted at every border.
They began to wait for the god weapon flag to do its work. When the demon beasts reached the border and were about to cross it, they received a powerful shock that threw them far back.
They were celebrating their victory when suddenly a sharp spike shot out and pierced a warrior.
They had believed that no attack would come at all, but this proved them wrong.
The god weapon stopped them from entering, but it did not stop them from attacking.
Seeing this, they became alert and began using their weapons against the demon beasts. Archers launched fierce volleys of arrows, and each warrior attacked with the weapon in which he was skilled.
This battle continued for a full seven days.
Suddenly, they saw the demon beasts begin to retreat, and they breathed a sigh of relief.
They had understood one thing: the demon beasts attacked for only seven days in a year. After this period passed, they went down and began clearing out the remains of the demon beasts.
During the cleanup, they found something unusual. It was discovered in the brains of the demon beasts. It looked like a red crystal, and they could feel that it contained a tremendous amount of energy.
They named it the Demon Core Crystal.