Extending my hand forward, I could feel the demon lord’s soul shaking inside his motionless body. He still hasn’t recovered from the last beating I gave him. As we void dragon can eat souls to cultivate our age, we can directly strike it down, but that requires a lot of skill and would waste the age we could get.

Void Stomach

Darkness rushed out of my hands and consumed Demogorgon, pulling his failing existence into my stomach to get digested. ^I can digest him. Nice. I got old enough.^ I smiled, pushing the thought of me getting closer to my death into the back of my head. Speedrunning life is quite stressful.

“Don’t worry, little one. I’ll separate the soul from the body and slowly feed him to you so you can adjust and grow. This is the first time I’m trying to raise a familiar.”

The slime wiggled in Gojo’s hands, unable to resist or run away. It felt like a kid forced to eat vegetables.

I lifted the slime, staring at its wiggling blue surface while thinking of the best way to feed it. I could just throw him into my stomach and feed him there, but that’ll be quite scary for him. I should probably give him a bit here.

Putting one finger into the slime’s surface, I released a bit of Demogorgon’s magic. The slime naturally sucked the mana and absorbed it into its body. An Ooze’s body is made of countless tiny cells that function like a colony and move in a blob. This was like raining grilled meat and food into a human city, or rain in a dried and thirsty field.

The slime’s body flashed green, then its bright blue color shifted into a darker tone. The magic in its body rapidly increased, but it quickly fell asleep and stopped eating. It takes time for it to digest the mana even if Gojo did digest it first.

“I’ll give you a name. Demogorgon…a demon…and a slime…Got it, you’re called Obelisk. The black hole of the abyss’s darkness.”

******

Name: Obelisk

Race: Demonic Ooze

HP: 11 MP: 9 SP: 8

Strength: 2 Agility: 2 Constitution: 2

Magic: 2 Intelligence: 2 Wisdom: 2

****

Skills:

Digest Acid Splash

Demon Lord Spark: The Shard of all Evil

Resistances:

Slashing from non-magic weapons

Piercing from non-magic weapons

Weakness:

Bludgeoning damage

******

I couldn’t help but laugh. I was right. Demogorgon had a shard. I read about them in ancient text, but it’s my first time seeing one in person, and it’s Shard of all Evil nonetheless. I heard the beast queen Hati has the eternal shard, and that dragon goddess Tiamat has the shard of purgatory, but I didn’t know they left one here in the abyss.

There are two sources of divine-like powers. Portfolios and shards. Portfolios are made from the beliefs of people, like how humans worship the sun, and that gave birth to the sun’s portfolio that Amaterasu has. To keep a portfolio, you must maintain a steady amount of believers who pray to you, and from their prayer you gain power. With enough people and ceremonies, a creature can gain more power from a portfolio than from a shard.

But since keeping believers and answering their prayers can be annoying, a shard is far better for those who want quick and discreet power.

For an example.

Portfolio: 1 believer gives a small amount of power, let’s say 0.001. With one million believers, you get a power of 1000. You start low and have to build your status or steal another god’s hard work.

Shards: A shard gives you powers based on its nature. They are the embodiment of the world’s nature as opposed to the portfolios, which are concepts. 1 shard would be around 750. And can’t be grown without meddling with the world’s nature.

“Rest, little one.”

Gojo smiled. This will further his search for the origin of powers. Is it magic? The system? portfolios? Or the shards?

****

Back in Croc’s hut city, Arad flew above the clouds masked by the darkness of the night, surveying the lands for monsters and points of interest.

^This city is strange.^ Arad thought.

I can’t help but wonder, with it being almost twice as large as Alina, why is such a disparity present?

The rich, nicely built eastern half contrasts the poor slums of the west half. As if a wall separated the two, it was clear from one look. Large buildings and green gardens are on the east, and smaller houses are on the west. One had a large beach, a massive tourist attraction, while the other bordered the alligator-filled swim buzzing with massive mosquitoes.

Strangely enough, not many monsters were spotted on the west side, and Arad could clearly see why. A large swam of alligators ganging on a horned wolf, ripping it apart.

“They are massive.”

The smallest of the alligators was over 3 meters long, and there were over 50 of them in one spot.

“I don’t know what would be worse, an alligator infestation or a flood of monsters. Probably the first as people seem to have gotten used to those massive lizards.” Arad landed in the middle of the swarm and shifted into his humanoid form.

The alligators turned toward him, growling, “Hoi! Hoi! There, hold up. I’m not here to harm anyone,” He waved his hands, speaking with them.

“A dragon,” The oldest of the alligators crawled toward Arad, he was over 150 years old. “Another black one. My children Directly support the authors on AllNovelFull!

would rip your kind apart!” He growled.

“I said I mean no harm,” Arad found a stone and sat down, surrounded by the alligators’ mob. “You said -Another black one- Was there another dragon here?”

“Prepare to die!” The alligators charged at Arad, biting him from the legs and side. But even with all of that force, he didn’t even budge, feeling like small kittens attacking him.

^Those alligators are scared. I should get them to calm down,^ With a single, pull, I snatched the elder by the upper jaw and dragged him up to my lap, patting his back like a dog. “Calm down, grandpa. I’m not here to harm you or your children, who’s this black dragon you’ve been talking about?”

“Let me go! Insolent dragon,” The alligator grandpa growled, “You’re but one fat lizard, put me down!”

“Nah, you’re staying here.” Since I’ll be living here for a while, I need to get to the bottom of this. I can’t feel any magic in the air, so I doubt this place is in the territory of a dragon, but just in case…

“I’m studying at the school over there. That massive stone building,” Arad pointed at the university, “As you know, we dragons rarely get along. Can you tell me about the dragon around here? Do that and I’ll even protect you from him while I’m here.”

“The dragon would then kill us later. But…” The elder grunted and the young alligators moved away from Arad.

“This whole swamp is its territory. We’ve only seen it once when it came all here forty years ago, but since then we’ve been only dealing with the monsters running from its lair.” The alligator grandpa sighed.

“You keep calling him it…”

“I don’t know it’s gender. You dragons all look the same in your dragon form. Don’t start trouble with it and get us mixed in, we’ve got enough dealing with monsters.” He sighed, exhausted.

Arad slowly lowered the elder alligator to the ground. “I can’t sense a dragon’s magic around. Assuming he’s a dragon, he probably pulled his magic away when he sensed me or my brother.”

“Why would a dragon hide.”

“Cause he’s weaker than us, and doesn’t want to get in a territorial fight.”

Arad stood and looked around, “You stay here, I’ll try to greet him. It’ll be better to clear any misunderstanding from the start.”

Arad shifted into his half-dragon form and flew deeper into the swamp. After a minute, he stopped and landed beside a tree, bending down and smelling the dirt. “Hmmmm! I can smell it,” His eyes flashed purple.

“Faint, but new trails. A black Drakaina is hiding deep into the swamp, probably in an underground lair.” He smiled, “But why hide?”

^A dragon posting in her territory, and two powerful void dragons nonetheless. She’s either not interested in mating, or too old for it. But if she’s too old, she’d be more confident in her strength and leave her aura out.^ Doma explained.

^I know,^

Arad shifted into his draconic form and stood in the middle of the swamp, “I know you can hear me, Drakaina. Fear not, for neither I nor brother seeks mates for now.” His eyes flashed with a bright purple light as his magic spiked.

“I suspect you’re either too young or too weak to protect your land. I don’t know about my brother but feel free to call me for help if you need it. You’ll find me at the University of the Arts. And if you can’t take a humanoid shape, merely speak the alligators and I’ll come flying down.”

Expanding his wings across the swamp, he slowly started levitating with gravity magic, without a single flap. “I knew this place had to be owned by someone, and I never intended to settle here for free. I’ll take care of any invading monster, hope to speak to you at least once before I leave.” He flew away, “Peace be upon you, as long as you hold it upon me, Black Drakaina.”

^A titan had to teach me that. No need for aggression,^

He disappeared above the clouds and his magic soon faded from the forest.

“Monster. And I wanted to hibernate through your stay here…” A voice echoed through the swamp.

Updated from frewebnovl.