Chapter 2316: Names

'Hm? No losses?'

Leonel looked toward the small troop of a hundred demons, somewhat surprised. He had sent this troop into the Void Palace without his support with only a single goal: kill. Of course, there were some other caveats about time constraints, efficiency, and the like, but he had ultimately left it up to them to decide the details.

The troop was the first batch of his experiments with the golden scaled koi fish and the tentacle womb. It was years in the making, but it was finally bearing fruit. It was just that he had been waiting to use it at an optimal time.

This time, he decided to use them to provoke the Human Domain. What could be a better tactic to provoke the ire of these powers than to kill their children and their future? He could imagine just how enraged they were now, and whatever plans they had been making would most definitely move forward.

But standing here, right here and now, he was shocked.

According to the report these demons had brought back, they hadn't just managed to kill a small number, they killed all of them. Not only did they kill all of them, but they didn't lose a single member of their original 100.

This troop, his first troop, was built based on the cobra demon that had eaten Leonel alive. They all had beautiful, sapphire scales and their necks and heads were covered in the natural hood of a cobra.

Each one stood at over two meters tall and they radiated a dense cold. Their armors matched this cold, fusing them and amplifying them. Leonel had added some of his comprehension of Void Star Force, but honestly it was limited and not his best work as he had created these armors even before his breakthrough in Crafting.

His thought process was that even if this cobra demon troop was caught and dissected, they wouldn't look any different from normal demons, and on the other hand, his enemies wouldn't have any idea what his current Crafting skill was at.

But the end result was beyond his expectations and his provocation had worked almost too well. Looking at the storage device filled with Ethereal Glabellas, he didn't even quite know what to say.

He had personally created, from one cell to a complete living being, an army stronger than the greatest elites of the Human Domain?

He shook his head and sighed. From the moment he learned of the abilities of the Silver Tablet, he had felt that life was far too worthless, and here he was confirming those ideas once more. It was hard to accept for someone like him whose journey of morality and its push and pulls had once given him the conviction to save all beings.

It was funny, in a morbid sort of way.

Back then, he thought that all lives were equal because they were each immeasurable.

Now he thought the same... but only because all lives seemed to be equally worthless.

It was a foundational difference that led to the same conclusion. But what made it worse was the legend of the Northern Star.

Life could be created so casually, it even felt that the life and death of those born in these Incomplete Worlds was no different from a breeze riding the rays of the sun, fleeting and without substance.

And yet the end of the world was looming on the horizon and no one seemed capable of stopping it.

These things... how could both be true, why were they both true, what kind of sick joke built the fabric of reality as it was?

Leonel looked toward the demons, his gaze a bit blank. Right now, he was striving to bring his future wife back to life, striving to see his father stand broad and tall once again, but if he really succeeded in either, just what worth did they ever even have?

It was a thought he had been running from and it was like he was being forced to confront it, ironically due to creations of his own.

What was more important to him? That lives were worth something more substantial than an outpouring of resources? Or that he could always bring those he loved most back to life?

If he could bring those he wanted back with a thought, if he truly ever reached a level of power that allowed him to be infallible to such an extent, would acting on his power diminish the worth of the lives he had wanted to save so much?

He didn't know the answer. It was another question, one maybe even more profound and complicated than the one that had guided his journey until this point, and it came with a depth of suffocation and helplessness that was even heavier than the first.

Leonel gazed toward the demons again. They stood tall, none of them knowing what thoughts were running through the mind of their creator.

Their intelligence was no less than that of the demon that Leonel had fought back then, the strength no less as well. In fact, they were stronger, having been constructed to the level of the Seventh Dimension rather than the Sixth.

What made the reality all the heavier was the fact that this demon wasn't even from an Incomplete World.

"What are your names?" Leonel suddenly asked.

SKKKKRRREEEEEEEE!

The roars of the hundred threatened to shatter Leonel's eardrums, and Leonel actually began to laugh.

He didn't understand their language, but he no longer needed to. With the Dream Plane, he could sense the intentions of their words directly.

Their names? They didn't care about them. They had never had one. They only wanted to fight, to bleed for strength, to crush the bones of their enemies beneath their feet. All of the more complicated things, even if it was just a name, they didn't care to have one.

It was a simple and beautiful existence, and one that he unexpectedly envied.