--

'What is this...feeling? I wonder.'

'And why am I feeling it?'

Amidst the dry land stained black with corruption, a humongous creature stirred into wakefulness.

All it did was open its eyes, yet this simple movement caused the surrounding creatures to flee in terror as if a natural disaster were approaching.

This giant creature looks like an ape with an elongated neck and similarly long but lanky arms. It has very long fur stained with a crimson color. It lay flat on the ground, unmoving as its eyes stared at the dark and gloomy skies with a questioning gaze.

The creature then sat up, and immediately, everything within at least 100 miles trembled from its movement. A dark and depressing atmosphere encapsulated the land, originating from the giant creature itself.

All life withered around the creature as if they're aging at a pace visible to the naked eye. Meanwhile, the creature just sat there, looking at the horizon with a curious glint in its eyes.

'Are those monkeys doing something ridiculous again?' It wondered.

The giant ape's eyes dilated all of a sudden, and a strong sensation of depression clouded its mind.

'No. That can't be.' The ape thought. 'Their spirits have been long broken, just like mine. All they could really do now is hide. A useless effort, if I might add. It's hopeless for them.'

'If they think that hiding from the eyes saves them from what's to come, then they're delusional.'

The ape slouched even lower and raised its hand to scratch its head. It then released a sigh that caused everything within its immediate vicinity to experience a low-intensity earthquake. Then it laid down again and closed its eyes, intent on continuing its slumber.

'I still don't know what this prickly feeling at the back of my neck is,' it thought. 'And I still don't know why I'm feeling it or why it bothers me.'

'...'

'Whatever, I'll just go back to sleep.'

The ape couldn't be bothered anymore and once again fell into a deep slumber, unaware of an invisible creature standing over its body.

**

"Hmm? That giant chimp woke up?"

Not too far from the place where the giant ape slumbered, another creature curiously looked over with a unique look on its face.

"That chimp just sleeps all day long yet is still able to become that strong. It's so unfair." The creature sighed.

The wings behind its back fluttered ever so slightly, releasing a cloud of dark golden mist that dispersed throughout the area.

As these mists scattered in the air, they turned invisible. All the creatures that inhaled this invisible mist turned mad and started attacking each other.

The creature that released this mist looked like a massive moth with a slightly humanoid body. It wore a helpless expression, seemingly unaware or uncaring of what was happening on the ground beneath it.

"That lazy ape as well as that angry lizard...they're all unreasonably strong for no particular reason at all." The giant moth then looked up and wore a resentful expression.

"Curse you, you fat fuck!" It raised a middle finger to the skies, uncaring whether its message was heard by its target or not. "You gluttonous pig! You sent me here while you enjoyed the luxury on that ship! I regret calling you my brother! Argh! This is so unfair!"

"That goes for you as well, you lecherous cunt! I swear when I return, I will rip off your tits with my bare hands!"

"Hmph!!"

After screaming its resentment away, the moth's wings continued fluttering away, leaving behind a cloud of dark golden mist, which made the stray demons fall into madness.

**

"So the Night Stalkers failed, huh? Hmph! No worries. I wasn't expecting them to succeed anyway. But I will remember this. The Night Stalker race will have to answer to me once we're finished conquering his backwards planet."

At the distant edge of Azure Terra, a place surrounded by an eternal typhoon could be found. At the eye of this typhoon lies a swirling void that constantly oozes out corruption.

Inside this swirling mass of void was a massive bone dragon emitting a ferocious aura that caused the very space to tremble. The killing intent on its body was fierce, almost manifesting into several shapes of screaming ghosts, tormented creatures, and angry wraiths. The eyes of the bone dragon looked sharp too. One glance could literally kill someone.

The bony head of the dragon suddenly flicked towards the south. It then sneered a minute later.

"Fucking ape, it's such a shame that it's so fucking lazy. It would've been a great help to this king. Hmph!"

"That moth is the same. All it does is whine all the fucking time. Hmph! Why did our god even send them here? I, alone, am enough to deal with these ants."

The bone dragon shook its head and curled into itself. It ignored the stray birds walking on eggshells nearby. It only concerned itself with making plans to hasten the conquering of this tiny world since it didn't want to stay in this place any longer than necessary. Unfortunately, it needs to exercise patience, which evidently the bone dragon doesn't have much of.

"Hmph!" A thunderous snort sounded out, causing the strays to nearly die from a heart attack.

This wasn't the first time this happened, and it certainly wouldn't be the last. Being the lackeys of this temperamental lizard should've, in theory, built their resistance to its whimsical bursts of rage every now and then, or at the very least, made them used to it by now, but the truth is that it doesn't. It still feels as terrifying as it was the first time they experienced it.

Still, nobody dared to voice any complaints. The last one who did so ended up filling the gap between its teeth. And because the dragon held a high status, it had the right to ban them from accessing the soul network. Meaning that anybody who died on its claws and maws wouldn't be revived or reincarnated.

The strays could only swallow their resentment and do their best to mitigate the bursts of anger and annoyance from this bony dragon.

**

"The spies sent the first batch of intel," Raven Armstrong stated to his colleagues. "They have located three Demon Kings, and they've been marked on the map."

This caused his fellow High Marshals to become alert.

Armstrong then swiped his hands and displayed the map of Prime Earth. Through the system interface, the map had markers that pinned the general location of the Demon Kings.

"They've found two on the Lost Continent so far, and one stationed on the far south of Azure Terra," Armstrong stated.

Cassandra Zephyrus, who's in charge of the southern defense wall, looked grimly at the map and asked, "Which Demon King is it?"

"It's the Undead Dragon," Armstrong replied solemnly. "It's also one of the Seven Deadly Sins, the holder of the Wrath Sin."

A gloomy atmosphere suddenly descended on the meeting room. Then, Anthony Selner, another defense wall High Marshal, asked, "Aside from its location, do we have any further intel?"

"There's a perpetual typhoon at the location that the Undead Dragon chose. Moreover, there is a gaping spatial tear at its core depths. The Demon King is in there, and it's the center of its operations. The Night Stalkers reported sights of stray demons going in and out of that place. To prevent being discovered, the Night Stalkers didn't dare to go in, so this is all we have for now."

"It's too close for comfort." Filius Greenwood sighed, feeling a headache coming. "At least one of the Night Stalkers should remain within the vicinity to monitor their movements. We have to be alerted as soon as possible when that thing leaves its nest."

"Way ahead of you," Armstrong replied. "Acala already gave the same orders to them."

"Who are the other two, then?" Cassandra asked.

"The Lazy Giant Ape, who's also the Sin of Sloth, and the Moth Princess, the Sin of Envy."

There was a brief silence after High Marshal Armstrong revealed this.

"That's three out of seven. Are all of them here?" Anthony wondered in trepidation.

"Watch this first," Armstrong replied before playing a short video clip.

The clip contained footage taken by one of the Night Stalkers. It was the scene where the Moth Princess yelled profanities at the skies, even throwing a middle finger towards it. Despite speaking the language of demons, all of the High Marshals understood her without needing translations because they'd studied the language before.

"From his clip..." Armstrong spoke, catching the attention of his colleagues once more, "we can assume that, at the very least, the sin of gluttony and the sin of lust aren't here. As for the remaining two, the sin of pride and the sin of greed, we'll just have to wait and see. Hopefully, they're not here too since three of the sins are already enough to keep us occupied."

"Let's start with the closest threat to us first, the Undead Dragon of Wrath."

The intelligence brought by the Night Stalkers proved valuable, but unfortunately, there was no time for them to be thankful for it because there's an immediate threat around. Instead, the High Marshals could only begin planning on how to create countermeasures should the Undead Dragon come.

Meanwhile, Cedric just finished replicating the celestial bodies and is now planning to re-introduce them to humanity.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by lotustale.com