The Demon Lord was quiet for a while, then said, "Yes, but do you know why we lost?"
This truly was a difficult question to answer, especially since the demons had retreated so quickly.
Chen Changsheng replied, "I thought about it for a very long time. In the end, when I saw the tribal warriors outside Xuelao City, I remembered the matter you mentioned in your letter."
In the last one thousand years, the Demon race had been surpassed in every aspect by the Human race. The primary problem was that their fertility rate was too low.
It took a long time for low-grade devils to evolve into high-grade devils, and high-grade devils had low fertility. As time went by, the number of devils with vast territories became fewer and fewer, until they were almost unable to gather enough soldiers. Those tribal warriors were too unintelligent and couldn't fight against human armies head-on.
The Demon Lord pointed at him and said, "Yes, you should remember the reason I told you."
Chen Changsheng recalled the history the Demon Lord had told him in a letter.
The Demon Lord had said that this was the truest record of this world that he had only learned after ascending to the throne.
The Demon Lord had also said that, including himself and the Grand Scholar, only five people knew of this.
After that letter, Chen Changsheng became the sixth.
Chen Changsheng did not understand why the Demon Lord had told him this, so he naturally could not confirm its truth.
Based on what the Demon Lord said, countless years ago, the five continents of this world were not as isolated as they were now, and could be easily connected.
The race that ruled this world was the Divine race, the current Demon race of the Central Continent.
As time passed, the structure of the world gradually became unstable, and many changes occurred. The Divine Kingdom and the Netherworld gradually left the main continent, ultimately vanishing into the endless turbulence of time, leaving behind only a few extremely dangerous entrances to the passages. The abyss behind the Demon Lord was one of them.
The disappearance of the Divine Kingdom and the abyss brought about many terrifying changes. The vitality of the main continent gradually flowed away, becoming more and more desolate. The Divine race and the other intelligent beings that ruled the world were forced to migrate, and the main continent ultimately became a wasteland, known as the Forsaken Land.
The Divine race went to the Sacred Light Continent and continued their civilization, but they discovered that the spark of the Divine Kingdom's civilization had been lost on another continent.
Those sparks of civilization were the Heavenly Tome Monoliths, and that continent was the Central Continent.
The Divine race sent an expeditionary army through the barely passable Netherworld Path from the Sacred Light Continent to the Central Continent in order to retrieve these sparks of civilization. No one would have thought that after such a long period of time, the native races of Middle-earth would awaken through the spark of civilization and start fighting against the Protoss expeditionary army.
The native races were humans and demons.
That expeditionary force was naturally the current demon race.
…
…
"It turns out that this war has yet to truly end."
The people who heard this story were deeply moved. The wrinkles on the Tang Old Master's face deepened while Divine General He Ming pondered the meaning of war.
"Our current war has nothing to do with that ancient war."
The Demon Lord shook his head. "Just as the war between the two sides was at its most intense, the Netherworld continued to move away, and the continents were completely cut off. Neither the abyss behind me nor the mountain in the Cloud Grave could return to the Sacred Light Continent, so the commander of the expeditionary army made an extremely difficult decision."
"That commander was my ancestor, the first Demon Lord." The Demon Lord gave an additional explanation, then continued, "He ended that war, reached a temporary settlement with the humans and demi-humans, and burned everything related to the Sacred Light Continent. He then began to build his own city on this continent, his homeland. "
Xu Yourong held the young Daoist boy. The Demon Lord had not spoken since appearing, but now, she suddenly said, "A wise and timely decision."
The Demon Lord faintly smiled at her. "Correct. Just like that, my race lived on the Central Continent. Later on, the first Demon Lords and those Grand Scholars continued the methods of my ancestor. Using harsh laws, they ultimately succeeded in erasing all memories related to the Sacred Light Continent, turning this place into our homeland."
The Tang Old Master sighed, "Time has a mighty power."
The Demon Lord continued, "Alas, in the end, a serious problem still appeared. Those Demon Lords and Grand Scholars discovered that in an environment lacking Sacred Light, our race's fertility plummeted. By the time of Grand Scholar Tungus, he had already determined that this was an irreversible degeneration."
The topic returned to the original point of discussion: why had the demons lost this war?
The Demon Lord had once vaguely mentioned this matter in his letters, but Chen Changsheng did not understand why he had mentioned it, much less the other aspect.
Divine General He Ming, Xiao Zhang, and the others also did not understand.
A decline in fertility and even degeneration was assuredly the threat of extinction. In this situation, the demons naturally had to think of a way to reopen the path and return to the Sacred Light Continent. Why had the first Demon Lord and Grand Scholar Tungus never thought of this?
Chen Changsheng asked, "Just what is it about the Sacred Light Continent that makes you so afraid? You'd rather watch as the Devil Race declines than go back? "
"God."
The Demon Lord stared into Chen Changsheng's eyes and said, "If the path between this place and the Sacred Light Continent is reopened, we will all become God's servants."
… …
… …
At the start, the crowd realized that Chen Changsheng and the Demon Lord seemed to be very familiar with each other. They were very shocked, and the Tang Old Master's eyes turned rather deep and serene.
No one believed that Chen Changsheng would collude with the demons, but they still found it very strange, very bizarre.
But they were quickly drawn to the contents of the conversation between Chen Changsheng and the Demon Lord.
The shocking ancient legend, the truth hidden behind the black curtain, was that the demons were actually an expeditionary army from the Sacred Light Continent!
But what was God? The existence of a single and definite objective will that only those ignorant women and children would believe in?
There was no God in the Central Continent. The Orthodoxy believed in the Great Dao, not a true, objective existence.
The God that people spoke of was just a figment of legends or a projection of pure spirit.
The Divine Kingdom was above the sea of stars, the home of all people's souls. It was just a symbol.
And did God really exist in the Sacred Light Continent?
The crowd fell silent for a very long time after hearing the Demon Lord's words. Not even Xiao Zhang spoke.
"Isn't there no Divine Kingdom?"
No one had expected that the young Daoist boy would be the one to break the silence.
He lay in Xu Yourong's bosom, hugging her neck and opening his bright eyes to curiously look at the Demon Lord.
At some point, he had shaken off his fear and sorrow and was able to hear the complete story.
The Demon Lord did not answer this question, because he also did not have an answer.
The descriptions and indescribable descriptions of God were all words that he could only see after he ascended to the throne.
From his silence, one could see what sort of impact those words had once had on his mental world.
Xiao Zhang finally could not help but ask, "Is God really that powerful?"
"Ten years ago, those two Battle Angels that descended on White Emperor City were only God's servants."
After a pause, the Demon Lord said, "We also once were."
The 'we' in this sentence referred to the Imperial clan of Xuelao City.
Xiao Zhang froze, then said, "Rather wretched."
The humans and demi-humans that obtained the Mausoleum of Books and the Fire Seed were called stealers of fire by the Sacred Light Continent.
The first Demon Lord was called the Fallen Angel.
Back on the Sacred Light Continent, he had been an Angel, the leader of the Angel Army.
The so-called Fallen Angel was because he had been seduced by the devil and was unwilling to return to the embrace of God.
The name of that devil was freedom.
No one was willing to be a servant, not even a servant of God.
That was why the first Demon Lord had decided to stay here.
Thus, neither the first Demon Lord nor Grand Scholar Tungus had been willing to return to the Sacred Light Continent.
"I can understand that feeling," Chen Changsheng said.
"After escaping the shadow of death, I felt like the entire world had become lighter."
The Demon Lord replied, "Compared to death, that is an even more intrinsic freedom."
Chen Changsheng replied, "Compared to the answer, why this question was asked is even more important."
This story of the past had arisen from the Demon Lord's question.
Why had the demons lost to the humans?
Why had the Demon Lord asked this question?
"I still haven't finished. There is another important reason for our race's defeat … the Military Advisor hoped for our defeat."
The Demon Lord's face paled, but his lips grew even redder as if they had just been smeared with rouge.
"All the arrangements in this war were personally arranged by him, and then he wanted us to lose, so how could we not lose?"
Several gasps of shock rose from the Demon Palace.
Black Robe was the Demon Military Advisor and wielded great authority. Most importantly, he had single-handedly arranged all the strategies and tactics of the demons.
If what the Demon Lord said was true and Black Robe wanted the demons to lose, there truly was no reason for the demons not to lose.
But why would Black Robe do this?
No one believed in a sudden and tragic repentance. There had to be some reason behind this. (To be continued …)
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