Limitless The Strongest Revenant

[The demons are not the problem; malice is. As long as we can contain the malice, the number of demons is irrelevant. Conversely, killing every demon has no merit if their malice remains. Thus, here are my suggestions.]

[1. Raise an army of warriors comprised of both Reapers and the Awakened.

2. Create weaponry capable of exorcising malice, like Sacreds and benevols.

3. Train and empower your army to ascend them to Revenants.

4. Evolve the Awakened into higher beings. This will boost their ability to cleanse malice.

5. Reinforce all the other battlefronts, as we cannot achieve victory if any of them fail.

6. Assault the lower floors of Hellsgate to deny their invasions to Earth.

7. Raise the overall malice-clearing potential of the world to ensure the seal stays intact.

]

'… Aren't I already doing all this?' I argued.

[Yes. It is in line with the actions you already are executing. It is fascinating. You summoned [Maestro] to discuss this when you already knew the answer from the beginning. As if you arrived at the fundamental solution based on not logic but instinct.]

'Instinct huh.'

If you looked at it, the Reapers and the Awakened were essentially two armies trying to do the same thing. Both are malicious garbage men, though their motivations may differ. Thus, the Awakened have more in common with the Reapers than the Demons.

Demons currently hound Africa to inflict as much malice as possible. It might seem that they do it just to evolve, but that is only partly true. I agree that without strength, they would simply be killed by Reapers. But it does not explain all their actions; they might have desired malice for a different reason.

The main difference was that Demonkin never left Hellsgate. Demons did. Much like the monsters, the demonkin hardly invaded. There was more than enough malice in Hellsgate; the smarter way to go about it was to slowly get stronger.

The only thing I could think of was that they wanted to inflict more suffering on the humans. Not Reapers, but humans. Humans were the only thing unique to Earth.

'I wonder if the serpent tried to kill off humans first as well? 'With so many worlds destroyed, he must be experimenting.'

And unlike the Awakened, none of the demons I met were open to dialogue. Andromalius and Bifrons were not entirely easy to talk too. But even with all that, they acted with a mission in mind. They really wanted to fuck with the humans.

I once thought only the North had it bad. But the cover-ups I learned of showed the demons' tenacity. They have assaulted Earth on many instances, with catastrophic results each time.

'Which means they did so not out of pleasure but out of duty or necessity. Meaning denying that goal does more than make them unhappy. It places their chances of victory at stake,' I surmised.

Funnily enough, despite the grim reality I just learned, I didn't fear. Things weren't completely hopeless. We still had a chance. If I couldn't find a way to beat them, fucking with the demons was enough. For now, at least.

'Still, it is a pain in the ass that we cannot just kill them all. Having them come back with unlimited lives is troublesome.'

[In my opinion, humanity is just as hard to kill.]

'What do you mean?'

[From your explanations, the Snake struggles to eradicate humanity. Despite his success in killing you many times, the battle continues. This must be why he decided that focusing entirely on the Reapers is pointless.]

'…'

I found it ironic in a way. I was trying to win against an unkillable enemy. There was only one other trying to do the same thing I was. The snake itself.

'Hmm… from their point of view, humanity might as well be zombies. An army that never stays down no matter how many times you kill them. It's kind of poetic if you think about it.'

I couldn't blame the Serpent, though. From his point of view, he had already won at least seven times. And despite doing so, he wasn't any closer to victory. That was probably why he was scared.

{NO! CEASE AT ONCE! AGAIN THOU REPEAT THY BRAINSICK CHOICE!}

'So we ended up focusing on the same thing.'

Reapers were born of humans. And the tree of life bullshit recreated people back from the dead with the Karma thing. It gave each human many chances to become a Reaper. Until they reincarnated endlessly, the snake was never going to win.

So the bastard got creative and attacked the source of the cycle of reincarnation. Was that what Isekai and Returner stories tried to teach us? Of what we lost? Fast forward to this period; the Serpent successfully stopped our reincarnation.

'Our way of resetting the system has been lost.'

I didn't know when he accomplished it. But knowing what I know now, the timeline followed something like this.

1. Serpent wanted to fuck with humanity.

2. Serpent destroyed world.

3. World came back.

4. Serpent kept destroying world after world.

5. Serpent grew fed up and changed tactics.

6. Serpent broke the world tree.

Reincarnation no longer worked. And we were in the last cycle.

'So now we are in the final round and it's our last dance.'

I started in the world of Reapers knowing nothing. And despite my eagerness to learn from everything I could find, I still found it lacking. But while I still had many unknowns, my knowledge expanded exponentially.

Like [Maestro], I found it interesting. What I learned only reinforced my existing goals. To become a Revenant, to raise my women into Revenants. To create an army that can cull the undead. Even helping the North.

It was as if some kind of mystical force showed me the way. I didn't believe in such things. But I couldn't blame it all on chance; there was something more. What I was I still didn't know, but just by thinking through shit I felt myself more grounded.

'Thank you [Maestro], you were awesome. I hope you do your best again the next time I call you.'

[I only do as is expected of me. I will take my leave.]

At his goodbye, I felt the souls in my body stir and rearrange themselves once again. My mind began to feel foggy as if I were tipsy. It felt a bit weird, but I knew that this was just my body returning to its normal.

'Exa. I'm back. Summarize what Zanele has said up to this point.'

[Welcome back, my lord. The plan she proposed is to simply execute Prince Olamide with a blow to his soulgem. She currently has him sedated using her {fate}. The reason for her devotion is a favor to Prince Olamide's mother. She assisted Zanele when she was young.]

'I see. What happened to Olamide's mother?'

[She is trying to mask it with hollow words, but one of the {Kindred} of the Immortal has the ability to transfer malice. Olamide's mother was tricked into being a sacrifice. It was to stop the Immortal's soul from collapsing.]

'Then, the Prince…'

[Yes. Without a protector, he too has been used as a Malice receptacle, leading to his condition now.]

"Sigh… And I thought my family relationships were bad."