Demons Beside You

It was probably the Foundation Stone—the source of mana.

If Chen Zhao activated the dark shadow, then the Foundation Stone would replace Chen Zhao and provide mana to the shadow.

“Samuel,” Chen Zhao said. “With the Dark Shadow, is it stronger if the shadow is larger?”

“No. You can imagine the Dark Shadow as a specific amount of water. If you stand there, the shadow hat you see is the entrance. At night, you can use your mana to expand the entrance infinitely. But while expanding, it also means that the dark serum is also spread out.”

Samuel jumped onto Chen Zhao’s shadow. The Dark Shadow started moving instantly.

It wasn’t Chen Zhao who activated it. It was Samuel.

Under his control, the dark serum in the Dark Shadow kept spewing up.

The liquid transformed into an incredibly sharp knife.

The blade cut through the ground and chopped down a tree instantly.

Chen Zhao tried it too. It was quite easy to extract the serum.

But the next step—converging it into a knife, like Samuel had done—was very hard.

The main difference was that Chen Zhao’s knife wasn’t sharp at all.

He copied Samuel and shot the knife at a tree.

But the knife instantly broke down into serum again and flowed back into the Dark Shadow.

“Why can’t I make it sharp like you? Is there a special trick?”

“There’s no trick,” Samuel said. “It depends on your personality. You’re calm now and have no murderous intent. The dark serum expresses your inner state.”

“So, that means I can never be like you?”

Chen Zhao felt that it was really cool how Samuel summoned dark serum into a sharp knife.

“There are many uses for the serum. You can use it as quicksand, like how you attacked the ox monster yesterday.”

Samuel’s body started sinking in the serum. Chen Zhao rushed over to fish him out, but Samuel already sank in fully.

A moment later, he floated up again.

This time, he was hugging the Foundation Stone.

“Hey, this isn’t a Foundation Stone. It’s a Foundation Gem.”

“What’s a Foundation Gem? Isn’t it a stone?”

“Do you know about the Mutant God?”

“No, don’t try to teach about religion and stuff.”

“Do I look like I’m going to talk about this stuff with you?”

“Then why did you mention some Mutant God or whatever? I feel anxious hearing about it.”

“The so-called Mutant God is just a stronger mutant,” Samuel said indifferently. “They exist in Hell and the human world. Like that guy that your people brought over yesterday morning. He received the Mutant God’s power through sacrifice. No matter how many limbs Princess and the others ate, as long as he wasn’t killed instantly, he’d keep receiving power from the Mutant God.”

“That Akiro received power continuously from the Mutant God so he wouldn’t get sapped dry?”

“If the supply is continuous, then yes, but the Mutant God isn’t stupid. If he feels his power disappearing, he’d stop the connection.”

“Then what does this have to do with the Foundation Stone—wait, no. Foundation Gem?”

“Regular Foundation Stones are made out of a witch’s mana source. There are similar methods in Hell to use a demon’s power. But this one’s different. It’s created with the power source of a Mutant God.”

“A Mutant God is really strong, right? Who can turn it into a Foundation Gem?”

“They’re rare. It doesn’t mean they’re strong.”

“It has ‘god’ in its title. Isn’t that a big deal?”

“If you disguise yourself, you can pretend to be someone’s god too... Oh, right... Go disguise yourself and trick some believers.”

Chen Zhao rolled his eyes. “That thought is very dangerous.”

But he understood what Samuel meant.

These so-called Mutant Gods weren’t as almighty as imagined.

They only pretended to be gods after getting packaged up.

Or people treated them as gods randomly.

“Why do Princess and the others like it so much?”

“It’s a top delicacy for demons and mixed demons. It’s also very precious.”

“You don’t seem interested.”

“I have a few hundred mutants in captivity.”

Okay, there was no point talking to a rich guy.

Like, if you’re talking about what’s good to eat and then the other guy just said, “I have a specialized farm at home for that,” then the conversation was dead.

“Then, you should have a Foundation Gem too, right?”

“The mutants in my territory are raised for meat. We cut off a chunk of meat every now and then and it can recover quickly. But they’re too weak, so they can’t be turned into Foundation Gems.”

Chen Zhao continued trying to practice the Dark Shadow. The amount of serum couldn’t be changed, so the size of the shadow meant a difference in density.

If he turned the Dark Shadow into the size of Mirror Lake, then it would have very low density.

Similarly, if the area was small, then it would be very dense.

Chen Zhao figured out another use. He could use the serum to block bullets.

He brought out a skeleton soldier and had it shoot straight at him.

In the beginning, he was scared, so he drew out the distance.

But after a few tries, he realized how unnecessary his worrying was.

As long as the serum was dense enough, it was like an indestructible steel wall before him.

Of course, it wasn’t completely bulletproof.

In the end, the dark serum was just a highly-dense liquid.

The liquid changed according to Chen Zhao’s will.

But it still had its own threshold. It was higher than most liquids, but it didn’t mean that it was actually indestructible.

Chen Zhao couldn’t ensure that his serum wall would block a sniper rifle.

“Mr. Chen, are you home?” Nat called.

“Yes.”

“We created an outfit for Princess and...your little cat. Is it okay for us to come over and have them try it out?”

“Sure, come on over.”

A while later, Nat, Tris, and Cooper arrived.

The assistants Faven and Jaberry also arrived.

After that day, Brighton never showed up again.

They didn’t know where he went, but they were sure that he wasn’t happy at all.

But it was like nothing had happened. It seemed that no one cared where Brighton went.

This filled them with respect for Chen Zhao.