Mind Demon's Path of Domination

After his battle with the savages, Mark moved away from the savage city. He didn’t completely retreat but instead moved in a circle through the air, circumventing the city and reaching a different part of the wilderness.

On his route, he had come across another group of savages, too. It was in a silent part of the pine forest. All of them were Silver Savages—equal to Tier 1 Pinnacles—and weirdly similar to each other.

This group was also a group of five with a similar dynamic as the one he met earlier. One of them was a Teleporter, another a Defender. Scratching his mask as he sat on top of his pale horse, another one was a Healer. Then, amidst them, was also a sleeping Nullification guy.

Surprisingly enough, instead of the Spearman, this team had a Swordsman.

Mark just couldn’t understand how their powers worked and he didn’t want to alert them, so he didn’t scan them with his soul sense. After that short encounter, he hadn’t met another savage, but he had in fact, seen an expanding dungeon on his route.

It was a cave and an ominous aura came out of it.

It was a dungeon with a Low-level Middle Demon running it.

That group of savages must be headed toward the dungeon, Mark realized. If they only have the powers that I’ve already seen, how can they sense dungeons?

He didn’t linger near the dungeon either and flew away, slowly melding into clouds before he entirely left the forestry and began flying above an ocean.

With his soul sense that could stretch for 1000 meters, it wasn’t hard to find an underwater cave, and smiling, he removed his wings mid-flight. He began falling. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Yuri looked around with twinkling eyes as her short hair fell against his face.

"Mark, this is actually incredibly weird," she said, wind blurring her noice.

"Why?"

"We are in a whole different world and that would mean entire ecosystems have shifted. But here, there is oxygen for us to breathe, water to drink, and many things look the same as in the hunter world. The more I think, the weirder it seems."

"Hadn’t we already had a similar discussion?"

"Still. Do you think humans exist in this world because they are suitable to this world, or do you think this world is suitable to humans because they exist?"

Are we here because we have become well-suited to this environment, or does the environment seem suited to us because we are here to perceive it that way?

Mark opened his wings just above the water and floated there, sending the surface of the sea bursting away from them. "It’s not the time to be philosophical when we are literally falling from the sky," he said, looking at her.

But Yuri shook her head and showed him her wrist. "Indeed, you haven’t noticed. Look at my skin, it’s all messed up."

Mark frowned. Her whole arm was filled with... pimples.

"What is going on?" he asked and took hold of her wrist. "Did some attack hit you? Some allergy?"

Yuri looked at him for a second.

She felt a burst of sweetness in her heart. Months ago, no one would have cared if she gained some pimples on her hands. Nobody would have cared if she died. But now, she smiled. She had seen genuine worry flicker in his eyes for a brief second.

Her life mattered to him.

She explained why this was happening, "My body is not meant to survive in another world. People can’t just shift their environments so abruptly. The microorganisms here are an issue to me for starters, and even though this place surprisingly has breathable air, I don’t think I am completely healthy after breathing it this much."

Mark’s brows furrowed deeper.

Now that he noticed, her lips were cracking, and the skin on her cheeks was dry. Why didn’t she tell me this earlier?

He would have just thrown her into his World Space if she found this world uncomfortable.

"I predicted this the moment I entered this world, that I would have a lot of issues here and might even gain super bad diseases even while being as strong as myself. My body is very strong, so, naturally, the adverse effects took some time to catch up with me but it is here, my whole system is in a mess and this pimple is just the outward issue."

Mark stared exasperatedly at her. "Why did you let yourself be harmed this much?"

Yuri tilted her head. "Of course, as an experiment. Since I want to follow you, entering other worlds is going to be a normality, if I can’t keep up, I will have to coop up inside that boring World Space of yours. And of course, I am not going to die when we have Black Water."

Sighing, Mark gently took her lips and made her drown some Black Water through his kiss before they continued the conversation. Slowly, her face regained her usual color, and her lips became juicy. The pimples vanished.

Mark broke the kiss but the still seemed dubious.

"So, why did it happen?" he asked. "Explain clearly."

Yuri smiled and licked her lips, then, a bit hesitantly, cupped his cheeks. "Well, a creature slowly adapts to its environment. If a population of birds uses long, narrow beaks to feed on insects hidden in deep tree bark for some generations, their descendants will have even longer, narrower beaks, making it easier for them to hunt insects hidden in tree bark. The more generations pass, the more suitable a species would become to its environment."

Mark nodded.

"And me, a native human from the Hunter World, is adapted to my environment in the Hunter World but I am not at all supposed to enter a different world. So, if I do out of nowhere, I will gain a lot of diseases and my death is predictable if I stay here long enough."

Mark frowned. "Then do Dona and I not feel a thing because we are demons?"

Yuri grew contemplative.

Reol’ran interjected, "Dona doesn’t feel a thing because she has Defensive Magic Aura protecting her from such minor issues. No matter what world a demon appears in, they can adapt slowly because they have a passive protection like that but if her Aura is kept in its broken stage long enough, she would also have the same issue."

2

"What about me?" Mark asked.

Then, wouldn’t all the people who teleported away from the Hunter World when I absorbed its World Core die in those different worlds? They didn’t have Defensive Magic Auras.

"You entered this world through a Portal given by the Demon World, unlike Dona and Yuri, who didn’t use the Portal but came out of your World Space instead. When you move through a portal to another World, your body naturally adapts to the environment.

"As for Yuri’s case, she neither has a passive defensive mechanism nor did she come here through a Portal. Well, with Black Water, she should adapt soon enough. Two or three more uses of it and she would become immune to this world’s adaptation issue."

That made sense. The people of the Hunter World had been pulled into Portals, so the adaptation issue wouldn’t affect them as it affected their peer, Yuri. But he hadn’t noticed this at all when he was on the Hunter World, so Mark couldn’t help but be amused.

Yuri broke out of her contemplation. She slumped her shoulders. "You demons really are designed to travel worlds, unlike me, a normal Hunter. You guys have Defensive Magic Auras, and with it, indeed, my troubles wouldn’t even be noticed by you all."

Mark sighed and kissed her again. This time, he didn’t let go of her for some time and when he did let go, he said, "Don’t be so sulky. Let’s go research savages for now."

The scientist’s eyes lit up.

He dived underwater and using his sheer physical power, swam to the cavern beneath the water. It was quite a long swim, but with their strength, it was a simple matter. But with just that much time of contact with water, Yuri was once again looking sick.

Mark immediately fed her some more Black Water.

Leaning against the moist black rock, the Scientist looked up at the stalactites on top and sighed. Truly, everything here made her think of her homeworld.

"We really are in some other world," she said with a long tone, then grew quiet and snuck up to Mark’s embrace. After a while, she asked, "Mark, do you ever miss home?"

"Home..." Mark mused. "I think I don’t have much of a concept regarding a home. Honestly, I don’t think about it. And even from now on, as long as you people are around, can’t anywhere be home?"

Was Earth his home? Did he have something important there?

Not... really.

Was the Demon World?

Did place even matter? Wasn’t it the people that mattered? Memories?

Yuri nodded and grew quiet again. After a while, she said: "Babe.."

Mark didn’t hear clearly.

The once cold-faced Yuri blushed like a tomato and stood up as if she had never said something embarrassing and stretched. "Come, let’s go study the savages."

She hadn’t said it clearly, but Mark felt that she had meant to call him

"Yes, babe," he said with a grin and her blush ran beneath her neck.

After she became a Hunter, Yuri truly had become more expressive.