Based on the information Orsaga had absorbed, the Beast of Apocalypse, at the height of its power, might have even surpassed him in strength.
Naturally, the divine artifact it spent billions of years creating—the Book of Death—was anything but weak.
Its abilities were not only powerful, but also perfectly aligned with Orsaga's areas of expertise. He could easily extract the essence of its power to fill in the few gaps in his own arsenal.
Corrupting Matter meshed seamlessly with Orsaga's talents in infection, decay, and viral transmission.
Magical Contracts were practically second nature to any demon.
And Reality Distortion allowed his will to exert direct influence over the physical world.
"How convenient…"
Murmuring to himself, Orsaga stepped down from a mountain made of charred corpses, tucked away in a corner of the Lava Wastelands, savoring the surge of power that had just flowed into him.
Due to the differing flow of time between planes.
Though his avatar had only spent about a hundred days in the Matrix Purgatory, Orsaga's true body had already passed over four hundred days.
In his pursuit of evolution points and raw energy, even excluding the time spent soaking in the heart of stars, he had already spent over two hundred days slaughtering across every corner of the Lava Wastelands.
By now, he had long since lost track of how many beings he'd killed.
After leaving the main city of the Wastelands—Ashkarath, the only place with anything resembling law—he had opened a spatial gate, teleporting himself a great distance away.
From that moment forward, Orsaga began an indiscriminate slaughter.
Regardless of species, if a lifeform's strength was weaker than his own, it would be killed on sight.
Once he had exterminated all targets of value within a region—sometimes spanning millions of kilometers—he would simply move on.
And so, the Slaughter Tour continued.
By now, he had already jumped to sixteen different regions.
The one he was in now was nearly empty—only a handful of troublesome or worthless beings remained.
At that moment, his senses detected something new.
Shifting his gaze slightly, Orsaga's crimson eyes spotted, tens of thousands of kilometers away, a massive metallic sphere several kilometers in diameter speeding through the air.
Inside, he sensed the presence of tens of thousands of lifeforms.
With a casual flick of his tail, a spatial gate opened behind him.
Then, with fluid precision, his tail pierced through it—emerging directly beside the giant metal sphere.
In an instant, it broke through the hull and defensive enchantments, penetrating deep into the core of the vessel.
Within mere seconds—
His tail extended like an infinite chain whip, stretching for dozens of kilometers, systematically slaughtering every single lifeform it encountered inside the sphere, absorbing all available energy and usable matter.
Inside the core chamber of the sphere, several humanoid beings had been discussing their return trip.
At that moment, their advanced perception—enhanced by innate talents and high rank demon-class power—warned them of a cataclysmic threat heading their way.
Without hesitation, they activated specialized spatial artifacts in a desperate attempt to teleport out.
Ripples of spatial energy began to shimmer around them.
Just as the transfer process neared completion, glowing red runes along Orsaga's tail—the marks of death itself—flared to life.
A surge of invisible power slammed into the surrounding space, transforming into a powerful dimensional anchor that locked everything in place.
The teleportation ripples fizzled out instantly.
The humanoids' faces twisted from relief to horror.
They had no time to react.
In the next instant, Orsaga's tail had already finished annihilating every lifeform on the ship's outer layers and now broke into the core.
In a flash—so fast it defied perception—
Each of them was pierced clean through, bypassing all defensive mechanisms, their bodies and souls impaled before they even realized what was happening.
The team's leader, the strongest among them, barely had time to blink before his chest and spirit were both skewered, nailing him to the ship's command console.
"S-spare me—"
He began to plead instinctively, voice trembling with fear.
But in the very next instant, he was completely devoured.
From beginning to end, despite possessing power close to a High rank demon, he had no chance to resist.
No time to fight back.
Not even a chance to see what had killed him.
Once every worthwhile target inside was exterminated—
Orsaga's tail, which had grown over a hundred kilometers long and wrapped around the sphere more than a dozen times, began to retract.
The barbs along its surface now acted like microscopic saw blades—shredding as it withdrew.
The metallic hull, once tough enough to withstand a Tsar Bomba at point-blank range, felt like soft foam before Orsaga's tail.
Within a second, as the tail retracted to a critical threshold, the entire sphere was dismantled like dough, torn into countless fragments.
Debris rained down.
Then came a colossal explosion that rippled across thousands of kilometers.
A towering column of fire pierced the sky, forming a vast burning canopy that expanded outward.
Watching the scene unfold, Orsaga sighed in admiration:
"Slaughter and fire… truly a beautiful sight."
Only then did his tail shrink back to its normal size, slipping quietly through the spatial gate.
'This region's been cleared out too. Even though I've already gathered enough energy to evolve into a Archdemon, it's better to be safe. Might as well slaughter another three trillion, just to be sure…'
With that thought, his form faded from sight, heading toward a distant region billions of kilometers away.
His hunt would continue.
And as he vanished, the other lifeforms in the area immediately relaxed, returning to their usual routines.
Every creature in the Abyss understood what that sharp, unstable energy fluctuation around Orsaga meant.
He was close to evolution.
And slaughter was the fuel for that transformation.
This kind of thing happened constantly throughout the Abyss—especially here in the Lava Wastelands.
The only difference was in scale.
Some demons would kill off a few square kilometers.
Others—like Orsaga—would wipe out regions spanning millions or even tens of millions of kilometers.
In such circumstances, weaker creatures instinctively fled.
Those with power rivaling Orsaga's preferred to avoid provoking a powder keg.
That's why even the most fearsome creatures, those capable of matching Orsaga in strength, simply let him continue his slaughter unimpeded.
After all, once everything was dead, new life would fill the void soon enough.
So long as he didn't step into their territory, they didn't care how many he killed.
As for the weaklings in their own domains?
If they died, so be it.
Becoming food for someone's evolution… was an honor in itself.
Countless creatures stared at the towering fire pillar, their hearts filled with awe—and envy.
And as many began fighting for scraps of land and resources left in Orsaga's wake, brutal skirmishes broke out anew.
Where Orsaga had gone, or whether he'd keep killing?
No one cared.
It was just slaughter.
Whether one died—
Or a billion—
Or a trillion—
In the Abyss, such events were no more than routine. Nothing worth fussing over.
Unless you were directly affected, no one paid attention.
Everything carried on.
Just like it always had, through the endless ages.
_____
T/N:
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