BXBX NOVEL Chapter 48: The Hunting Game
"Hmmmm." Nox cleared his throat, snapping everyone out of their thoughts. His simple action seemed to scare everyone, and they started blaming themselves for taking too long to give a reply.
Even though he was clueless, at the end of the day, he was still a higher demon with level 100 to boot.
'Perhaps he could be one of those scouts looking for talents to join his hunting party. Maybe this is some sort of test to see if we can give him the real reason for the hunting game,' Snakey was a fast thinker and the brain of the party. She was the one who usually made decisions for the group. With the help of her fast brain, she'd easily deduced the reason for the higher demon's quest.
Raising her head, she locked eyes with the higher demon.
"The hunting game has existed since the appearance of the Dimensional Rift and has become an important aspect of the lives of demons," she said. "The hunting game originated from demons' competitive nature and greed for power. Because of this, the legacy Demon ranking was established. To climb the ranking, a demon needs to kill many magical beasts and take their beast cores. As for the rewards,"
Snakey paused, her eyes glowing with a fierce gleam. Even the rest of the party had the same determined look on their faces. From their expressions, it was clear that the rewards were what forced them to put themselves in harm's way.
The reason many of their kind had passed away in the maws of beasts.
"The reward is the lord of Blight Castle! We don't aim to be third or even second in the ranking. The ultimate goal is the number one spot."
Blight Castle was the shelter/stronghold in this dimension where most of the demons stayed. The lord of Blight Castle oversaw the stronghold and everything that happened in the Dimensional Rift.
Meaning, the Dimensional Rift wasn't owned by any kingdom or organization; the temporary owner was the one called the lord of Blight Castle. All resources, beast cores, magical items, and skill scrolls would be directly submitted to him as long as he remained the undisputed top ranker in the ranking.
'There are lots of loopholes in this ranking,' Nox thought. 'For one, stronger demons could easily steal monster cores from weaker demons and submit them to be counted, but since they're demons, there should be nothing wrong with this as well.'
"This raises the question: What if someone kills the lord of Blight Castle? Does this mean they'll be the new lord?"
"Yes, that's the fastest route but the most dangerous. Many have tried but didn't even last 10 seconds before being killed. When this repeated itself, all demons were forced to take the natural route," Snakey replied.
'Hmmmm, that means the lord of Blight Castle is very strong.'
'I wonder which level of dimension I'm in.'
Nox wanted to ask this question, but it would raise even more suspicion. How could he enter a dimension without looking at the color that indicated the level?
After pondering for a while, he decided not to ask and find out by himself. "Good, you passed my test."
"Test?" Gorgart, Jogo, and Viper looked at Nox with puzzled expressions on their faces.
'I knew it!' Snakey exclaimed inwardly.
"Hmpf, so you lower demons really thought I had no idea about the hunting game and the reward," Nox said in a disdainful tone as if he was looking down on the demons. He said this with such a straight face that it was almost alarming.
"Please forgive us for our ignorance!" The demons apologized while sweating bullets.
Nox simply waved his hand in a dismissive attitude. Now that he had learned a little information about this dimension, he was making some slight changes to his plans.
In order for him to hunt creatures and level up, he must register in the legacy ranking. From what he learned from Snakey, he would be fined, but Nox doubted something like that would happen with him being a higher demon, a level 100 one at that.
Some time later, Nox, in the company of Snakey and the others, left the clearing and went to Blight Castle… On the way, demons scrambled out of Nox's way after seeing his high level; some even went further to greet him, to which the latter didn't even bother answering as he needed to maintain the arrogant, domineering nature of higher demons.
Even though he didn't answer their greetings, they were still relieved. After all, a higher demon could kill a lower demon just because the latter was too ugly or because they didn't greet him. It was one of the reasons they greeted him, while some made sure to keep a very long distance.
As for Snakey and the others, they felt proud and smug because they were the ones walking with Nox, and every other demon, even the arrogant ones, had no choice but to give way for them.
Soon they arrived at Blight Castle.
Just like its name suggested, it was a massive dark castle with over twenty floors. It was built with the demons' unpredictable size in mind. There were lots of skulls hung as a sort of decoration. At the top of the castle, there was a pointy, triangle-shaped building that was bathed in roaring black flames.
It burned with such intensity that it could incinerate a wooden tree in seconds, but for some reason, the pointy building and the rest of the castle still remained intact.
Seeing Nox's intense gaze at the castle, Jogo said, "That's where the lord of Blight Castle lives, and no one is allowed there."
---