DKIE CH33: Realization

The kidnapper’s arrogant questioning and the family’s complex, tangled gazes became a major highlight.

The parents didn’t make a decision immediately. They first looked at the real young master, remembering yesterday’s promise.

The fake young master was terrified and confused.

Why the hesitation? They had clearly agreed that they were a family.

“Father, Mother—”

He let out a helpless cry, his face streaked with tears.

The fake young master’s lines infuriated the audience.

Meanwhile, the real young master seemed to have gone silent, saying nothing, still unrealistically holding out hope for his parents.

Luka’s emotional portrayal was spot-on. He didn’t make a direct choice but instead built up emotional depth through his indecisiveness.

Someone had a sudden thought: “If it were Iliad and Alec, who would the Demon King choose?”

The audience, already feeling a sense of immersion, subconsciously felt it should be Iliad.

He was his biological son, after all.

On the big screen, the protagonist’s foolish parents loudly declared, “Our younger son! We choose our younger son.”

The audience: “…”

Are you insane!

Under the faint light of the silver screen, faces were contorted in disbelief.

The kidnapper was terrifyingly true to his word. The real young master fell into the sea and died.

It was at this moment that the older brother, who had hesitated slightly before and had not stopped his parents because of the fake young master’s tears, lost his usual composure. He shouted the protagonist’s name and rushed to save him.

Too late.

Only the merciless waves answered him.

For the first time since entering the opera house, the audience finally felt a sliver of satisfaction.

The poster clearly had a “Revenge” tag marked in a red box. A dead person certainly couldn’t get revenge, so the real young master must be able to make a magnificent return.

“Good, good.” The centaur chieftain led the applause, his hooves even clattering twice.

Grover quietly watched his excitement, or rather, sensed the excitement of the thousands of viewers, sitting in his seat in unusual silence.

What followed was even more satisfying.

The real young master was ‘dead’, and not even a body could be found, as if he had never been there.

His former family began to regret, one by one.

Numerous flashbacks were interspersed.

The father remembered the figure who had secretly brought him a midnight snack while he worked late, hiding behind the crack of the door, too afraid to enter.

The mother remembered the child who didn’t dare to make a sound even when injured, only caring about whether he had brought them shame.

The older brother remembered their first meeting, those eyes full of expectation and caution…

After his death, they completely lost their minds.

The audience came alive!

“Loran must hate us very much,” the older brother said, taking his anger out on the servants and sitting down dejectedly. He said to his parents, “He won’t even appear in my dreams.”

The mother covered her face and wept.

The usually stern father stood by the window, silent and still.

The funeral, though late, finally happened.

On this day, the Capel family invited countless powerful and influential people. At the funeral, apart from the fake young master, the former family members were all grief-stricken.

At the moment the coffin was being closed, the older brother rushed to the coffin, which only contained some of Loran’s personal clothes, calling out the nickname that belonged only to Loran.

The scene was in chaos. No one noticed a familiar figure watching everything from afar.

The person’s face was half-covered, and the exposed eyes had lost their usual innocence.

He was sharp, incisive. Watching their repentance, he just said mockingly:

“Heh, belated affection is cheaper than grass.”

The audience nodded emphatically.

Time rewound to after the real young master fell into the sea.

[A demon, hidden in the depths of the sea, appeared in the black mist:
“Offer me your soul, and I will grant you the chance to live, endless knowledge, and the power for revenge.”
The desperate youth opened his eyes from the bottom of the sea and silently nodded.]

This scene was filmed in the sea. The cold, pale skin and the dark tides created an excellent visual effect.

There’s actually a demon setting! The sense of immersion is even stronger now!

All the viewers, including the two princes, as if they had become the protagonist, watched with shining eyes.

The demon race had always advocated for an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

The demon could legitimately bring power. They were just waiting for the protagonist to awaken and viciously oppress these people.

However, just as they were all completely focused and the plot was developing to its most critical point, the screen switched in a second:

“The Real and Fake Young Masters of a Wealthy Family,” Part One, screening complete!

The dimmed lights in the entire opera house came on. Just like before, there was no time for anyone to react.

Silence.

A dead silence, more terrifying than silence, began to spread. An unknown amount of time passed until a light strip on the ceiling, affected by a powerful demon, shattered with a crack.

The loud noise gradually brought the other viewers back to their senses. They first questioned reality.

“The movie… is over?” the centaur chieftain murmured.

It was over!

“Fuck him…” Certain that it was really over, the silent audience completely erupted.

“Don’t curse his father, you must not be disrespectful to the Demon King,” a friend next to him hurriedly reminded. “…And don’t curse his mother either.”

The Saintess had, after all, once been the Demon King’s legal wife. Even if they had a falling out later, cursing her could easily lead to trouble.

They couldn’t curse his father or mother. Iliad’s ancestors were also the Demon King’s ancestors, so they couldn’t curse them either.

This pent-up anger was enough to make one spit blood.

The next moment, a demon general sent by Alec indeed shouted sternly, “Who is slandering the Demon King? Stand up!”

The movie was the movie, the Demon King was the Demon King. Although, although… the Demon King had driven away his own son and raised seven children from other demon families.

The movie’s aftereffect was too strong. Even though they could guess the general direction of the plot, the audience was scratching at their hearts and lungs, desperate to see what happened next.

Why did it have to end at the most critical moment?

“Ahhh!”

Why?

Those in the front rows were practically tearing their hair out. With the great mountain of the Demon King pressing down on them, they didn’t dare to say a word, feeling as if ten thousand ants were crawling in their hearts.

The entire opera house was in an uproar. In this land where people would rather fight than talk, the curses were very simple. Mental incivility was far from enough to meet their current needs.

No victimized demon even thought of the two words “get a refund.”

The centaur chieftain suddenly thought of another culprit and questioned Grover, “What are you dragons playing at?”

I’m asking what you are all playing at!

“Exactly!” a viewer immediately echoed.

If they weren’t such dragons in real life, how could they have acted so well?

Grover didn’t care about his old friend’s complaint, but when slanderous voices came from behind, he let out a soft ‘hmm’.

With a whiff of dragon might, the audience’s suffering intensified.

They had almost forgotten that this one was also not to be offended.

Luka sat quietly in the corner.

“Let them curse.”

This was the charm of “crematorium literature.” Even if it was cursed to high heaven, countless people were still willing to pay for it.

He smiled and smoothed the wrinkles on his cloak. Just as he was about to get up, he suddenly heard a strange noise from outside.

“What’s that sound?”

Quill: “What do you think?”

Today, more than forty opera houses were screening the movie simultaneously. The opera houses of this era were not like movie theaters; a single one could accommodate several thousand viewers.

With nearly hundreds of thousands of viewers, the entire Dark City erupted in a riot after the movie ended.

“What garbage! This is revenge on the continent!!”

“Is the director’s brain a bit messed up? The narrative editing is a disaster, it’s rotten to the core!”

“I’m going to kill the director! No, show me the sequel first.”

There were reporters squatting at the entrance of every opera house, eagerly waiting to interview the first viewers to come out.

As long as one viewer disparaged it, they had material to write about.

However, the figures who walked out, without exception, first looked at the tall and majestic statue of the Demon King at the entrance, their faces almost contorted.

The reporters were puzzled. Why look at the statue for no reason?

Inside the opera house, Luka, who could vaguely hear the curses and threats, silently sat back down.

“This reaction is too much.” It was more than ten times more exaggerated than he had estimated.

When did the demon race become so thin-skinned?

Unfortunately, the mentally abused demon audience couldn’t get out of the plot. The curses from outside came wave after wave.

Some viewers even started to physically attack the opera house and were dragged away one by one by security guards.

“Let go of me, I’m not crazy!”

At this point, Luka was a little afraid to go out easily.

He began to feel wronged. “The sequel is all about revenge and a comeback. Why are they getting so worked up? Someone must be maliciously stirring things up.”

As he spoke, he tugged on the corner of Quill’s clothes and asked, “Don’t you think so?”

Quill’s eyes were half-closed, absorbing the tide of resentment coming from all directions.

His tone even seemed to carry a hint of dampness. After a long moment, he slowly uttered a sentence: “Heh, belated revenge is cheaper than grass.”

“…”

————

That day, Luka spent a great deal of effort to escape from the opera house.

Even more choked up than him were the two crown princes who had watched the movie. Heaven knows how they left amidst all the complicated stares.

The prince, one of a pair of fake parents, was not much better off.

In the inn, the owner saw the sneaking Luka return, his eyes blazing with fire.

Luka was stunned. “You went to see the movie too?”

The inn owner sneered, “I heard the guests discussing it.”

Just hearing about it made him want to dig up some graves.

Luka went upstairs dejectedly.

For his personal safety, he didn’t go out all night. Quill, on the other hand, used the money he had won at the casino to go out and buy a lot of demon beast essence blood.

“I really envy you for being able to breathe fresh air.”

Quill said faintly, “Who’s to blame?”

His demeanor as a writer was the complete opposite of that in the movie. Without the overly long bangs deliberately covering his forehead, no one would recognize him even if he tried to lower his presence a little.

Of course, the beauty marketing star couldn’t expect to walk around freely.

Luka silently pulled out the weeds in the flowerpot in the room.

Blame the grass.

He skillfully brainwashed and comforted himself.

Anyway, he had redefined his origins today. Being infamous was still a form of fame. At least he had broken out of his circle. After the backlash reached its peak, as long as he did something slightly positive, it would be easy to turn his reputation around.

He presumed Quill had also gained a lot. The fake young master he played had attracted a lot of hate.

Luka turned to his side and quietly watched Quill absorb the fresh essence blood.

With the massive amount of resentment plus the essence blood, he had thought the phantom would appear again, but after waiting for a while, it didn’t.

A scene of thrilling beauty began to unfold.

In the crimson light, that half of his body began to flake off like a machine in an old factory. The gears that maintained its function also fell to the ground with a clatter.

Destruction was accompanied by rebirth. The disappearing left side of his body gradually solidified into a state of flesh and blood, until the forearm, where a cluster of black energy that would not dissipate gathered. Below that was a skeletal hand.

The slender joints flickered with a ghastly fluorescence, like an unextinguished furnace fire.

Luka remembered Alex from the phantom. Hidden in the wide sleeve on his right side was also a skeletal demon claw.

So, was he slowly growing back his flesh and blood?

His surprised gaze lingered on that demon claw for too long. Quill nonchalantly tidied his sleeve.

Necromancers were symbols of darkness. From birth, they were accompanied by curses, unable to have a complete body. It was the same this time around.

He had seen too many fearful gazes in the past.

Luka came back to his senses, amazed by the process. “It’s like a phoenix’s nirvana, going through a growth cycle again.”

Too magical.

Quill, on the spot, unnaturally flexed his finger bones upon hearing this.

Absorbing too much resentment at once indeed had some side effects.

After staring at Quill for a long time, Luka couldn’t help but ask the guess that had been hidden in his heart for a long time: “The existence of the phantom is a bit like the little golden man inside my body.”

The faith magic he cultivated came from Alex. All laws were interconnected. Perhaps Alex had also cultivated a little golden man.

Using the Xianxia dramas he had acted in before as a reference, was it similar to a Nascent Soul inside the body?

If that were true, then mastering it would be equivalent to having multiple lives.

After the movie was released, his desire to escape was now very strong.

Quill neither admitted nor denied it.

“Can you tell me the truth?” Luka raised his hand and swore, “I promise I won’t even tell my parents.”

“…”

What a grand oath.

Quill finally said a few words. “When you wrote ‘The Beloved Three-and-a-Half-Year-Old,’ you set the protagonist to have a bloodline inheritance, so it later learned to speak on its own.”

The young of some higher beings are born with a certain amount of knowledge, making them stronger than other races.

“…That phantom is equivalent to the heritage I left for myself in the past.”

Quill said, “After my body was shattered, my soul resided in my heart. The demonic consciousness in my body, as a carrier of memory and knowledge, was hidden in another space.”

Luka understood in a second. Plasmolysis.

Memory and knowledge condensed into a part, like a separate, free-floating piece of code, to reduce the load on the heart.

He hesitated for a moment. “I don’t understand how the phantom could exist for thousands of years.”

Anything would decay over time. At least the soul had the heart as a protective shell.

“Through nutrients.”

Luka didn’t understand.

Quill suddenly lowered his head. The proximity was so close that Luka felt a slight tickle. His lips were almost touching his hair and ear when he left two more words.

The moonlight from outside shone in. Luka’s pair of phoenix eyes, out of shock, almost widened into the round pupils of a cheetah.

…

Mid-month, full moon, the Ghost Gate Day recorded in the old books of the human race.

Tonight, the moonlight shone fairly on every inch of the land.

In a heavily guarded mansion, the guards were all sixth-tier mages. Yet a figure moved freely through any space like a ghost. The moonlight shone on the dark red horns on the night-walker’s head, dyeing them the color of blood.

The Demon King, the Saint, the Dragon, the Elf King, and the Dwarf King were known as the five existences representing the pinnacle of combat power in the current world.

However, none of them had cultivated a godhead.

Having a godhead was the true pinnacle.

For so many years, the Demon King had been desperately searching for a way to break through, until the opportunity mentioned by the astrologer gave him hope.

He had a strong premonition that the missed opportunity had once been in the Land of Exile. Otherwise, a child with low elemental perception could not have risen so suddenly.

“Which step went wrong?”

There had long been rumors that a monster was sealed in the Land of Exile. He had also tried to use the blood of the pilgrims as bait, but nothing had been lured out.

After returning to the demon realm this time, the Demon King re-read all the books.

But unlike last time, he also browsed through all the books that Iliad had privately collected, and finally found a name in an ancient text—Alex.

This name happened to correspond to one of the legends of the Land of Exile.

“Who?!” The nobleman-dressed man suddenly realized there was an extra person in the room, his face changing drastically.

No matter how he cast spells or shouted for the guards, it was of no use.

The nobleman belatedly realized that the space had been sealed.

In this special state of space, the Demon King’s voice had an ethereal strangeness. “Some time ago, at the auction in Boulder City, did you bid for ‘Alex’s Diary’?”

The nobleman’s heart pounded wildly upon hearing this.

That diary had become a major turning point in his life. His magic level improved by leaps and bounds. Unfortunately, after reading halfway, the concealment spell on the latter part could not be deciphered. Just as he was about to go mad, a summoning spell appeared in the diary.

Below the summoning array, there were two choices:

One was to stop here. The other was to offer a wisp of soul to unseal the rest of the content.

Once a soul was offered, it was no different from being a demon servant. Not even death could bring release.

Reason told him that stopping here was the best outcome.

However, the vast knowledge of magic, the countless lost magic spells, were like the sweetest poison, crazily tempting him.

In the end, the nobleman still chose to offer his soul according to the method given in the diary.

Under normal circumstances, he only had forty to fifty years of life left. Why not take a gamble?

Besides, weren’t all those demon servants in the demon realm also calling the wind and rain?

Meeting the Demon King’s eyes, the nobleman’s thoughts suddenly became muddled. He uncontrollably blurted out the truth, “Yes.”

“What happened after that?”

“Where is the diary now?”

The Demon King asked two questions in a row. Just as the nobleman was about to reveal everything, suddenly, his entire body began to expand crazily. Along with the diary hidden in his storage ring, it exploded like a firework.

The commotion caused by the explosion shook the space, attracting the attention of the guards outside.

The sound of hurried footsteps came from outside the door. With a wave of his hand, the Demon King calmly disappeared from the room.

A quarter of an hour later, a figure appeared on a high mountain over ten thousand meters away.

The Demon King’s originally handsome face was covered in a terrifying shadow by the trees.

“It actually self-destructed.”

Only after becoming a soul slave would one proactively self-destruct when a core issue was touched upon.

That diary indeed had a problem. If he wasn’t mistaken, the diary itself was equivalent to a modified contract scroll.

The Demon King’s face gradually darkened.

A single diary could easily intercept a mage’s soul.

In most cases, a lucky person who accidentally obtained a treasure would keep it for private use and rarely take it to auction.

The one sold at the auction was definitely not a one-of-a-kind item. It was said that the diary sold last time was written by Alex in his youth.

So the question was.

How many diaries did Alex write in his lifetime?

__

Author’s Note:
Excerpt from Luka’s Diary:
The movie has scenes in the sea. I also want to release an overseas version for the merfolk to see.
Alex: …