Chapter 495

As everyone knows.

If you can't catch fish in a pond, you can use a pump on the spot to drain the water; you don't indulge the fish.

But if you can't catch fish in a large river, then a pump is useless; the speed of pumping can never keep up with the speed of the rushing river.

Three days later, Ye Lin and the Soul-Devouring Empress appeared on a barren mountain in the Demon Realm.

Halfway up the mountain, there was a cave about one and a half people tall, with no light inside, making everything invisible.

"Is this the place where that Human Emperor of the past is currently staying?" Ye Lin asked.

As soon as the Soul-Devouring Empress opened her mouth, she let out a hiccup, and she gave Ye Lin a resentful look.

"Yes, after he became a demon, he has been hiding in this cave alone, only appearing once in a very long time. No one knows what he is doing hiding in here. Since his strength is not beneath that of a Demon Emperor, no Demon race member has been bored enough to come and look for trouble with him."

"I'll go in and take a look; you wait for me outside."

Ye Lin nodded and walked straight into the pitch-black cave.

Anyway, he had many lives; if he died exploring, so be it, it was of no consequence.

After entering the cave, a chilly air rushed toward him, making Ye Lin shiver.

The temperature inside this cave was far lower than outside; calling it a freezer would not be an exaggeration.

The deeper he went, the darker it became, until he couldn't even see his own fingers, and Ye Lin could only grope his way forward in the dark.

The cave wound downward, with many twists and turns. As he walked, light suddenly appeared before Ye Lin; it seemed... to be the light emitted by burning candle flames.

Ye Lin became vigilant and cautiously approached the direction from which the light came.

But as he gradually got closer, Ye Lin's pupils shrank violently, and he couldn't help but swallow hard.

Because what appeared before him was no candle flame at all!

They were clearly one person after another!

Dozens of people, men and women, were kneeling neatly on both sides of the cave. They were naked and clean, but on the top of their heads, a wick was burning.

Ye Lin raised his hand and dissected one of them, only to find that the person's body was filled with wax oil that could aid combustion.

And this wax oil permeated all the blood vessels in the human body.

After a person dies, blood does not flow, so these people had their skulls opened while they were still alive, and wax oil was poured into their bodies.

Ye Lin's expression darkened; the pain one would have to endure when dying in this manner goes without saying.

And he carefully observed these dozens of human-shaped candlesticks; they had no other purpose, the only purpose was lighting.

"What an ancient Human Emperor..."

There is no such practice in the Demon race; Ye Lin was certain of this.

Therefore, this method of torturing people could only have been created by this ancient Human Emperor himself.

Ye Lin took a deep breath and continued to explore deeper into the cave; he wanted to see how many more surprises this ancient Human Emperor could give him.

After passing through the human-shaped candlesticks, Ye Lin saw many other human corpses.

These corpses, without exception, had been tortured to death and were hung here after special preservation treatment, just like air-dried mummies.

A rough scan showed nearly a thousand of them.

And after passing through the corridor of corpses, a stone door appeared before Ye Lin.

Just as he was about to reach out and push the door open, with a muffled bang, the entire stone door shattered into pieces.

Ye Lin was blown away before he could even see anything clearly, causing the entire cave to shake as if it were about to collapse.

Looking down, he discovered that a huge, transparent blood hole had appeared in his chest, and fragments of his organs were scattered on the ground.

And behind the stone door stood a tall, strange man with a head of dirty, matted black hair hanging down, covering even his face, revealing only a pair of eyes.

It was difficult for Ye Lin to describe what kind of eyes those were.

Chaotic, tyrannical, ferocious... these didn't look like human eyes at all, but more like a beast driven to a dead end, wanting to fight to the death.

After that strange man punched through Ye Lin's body, he turned to leave.

After all, with such injuries, without treatment, even a Demon race member would surely die.

But at this moment, Ye Lin spoke.

"Should I call you Human Emperor... or respectfully address you as Demon Emperor?"

Hearing the words "Human Emperor," a ripple appeared in the strange man's eyes, as if he had recalled something.

Yet he still ignored Ye Lin, until he saw the wound on Ye Lin's chest actually healing slowly, the muscle fibers reconnecting, and the missing organs growing back.

In the depths of the strange man's eyes, the emotional fluctuation became even more intense.

He opened his mouth, but the words that came out were intermittent, dry, and hoarse.

"Origin... Ancient... Artifact... Eternal... Balance..."

The strange man stared at Ye Lin.

"You... are not a demon."

He spoke more and more fluently.

"You have not experienced the penetration of demonic Qi, you are only at the Pseudo-Emperor Realm. The Demon race has strict order; even if they obtained the Ancient Origin Artifacts, they wouldn't let a Pseudo-Emperor hold them. So... you are a 97th-level Lie Yang Realm human."

Clap, clap, clap.

Ye Lin applauded.

"As expected of a former Human Emperor, to be able to deduce so much from just a little information."

"Since your deduction ability is so strong, why don't you calculate whether you will die today?"

Ye Lin had a kind smile on his face. From the moment he saw those human-shaped candlesticks and the various messy corpses, he had already developed a murderous intent toward this former Human Emperor.

His master digs up imperial tombs, and he directly kills a former Human Emperor; teaching by example, inheritance from teacher to student, this is very reasonable.

"You risked such great danger to sneak into the Demon Realm just to kill me?"

A look of surprise appeared in the strange man's eyes for the first time.

"No, killing you is just a matter of convenience," Ye Lin answered truthfully.

The strange man shook his head numbly.

"Then go away. I don't want to fight you. I won't help the human race, nor will I help the Demon race. Don't come and disturb me either. A bunch of ants fighting back and forth has no meaning."

"Then what did you fall into being a demon for?" Ye Lin asked in return.

"Of course... it was to pursue even more powerful strength!"

A flash of madness crossed the strange man's eyes.

"Human lifespan is ultimately limited. I chose to be eroded by demonic Qi just to obtain a longer lifespan. I want to step into that realm! That realm above Lie Yang!"

As he spoke, the strange man suddenly looked at Ye Lin fiercely.

"I know what you want to say! Want to accuse me of abandoning others to survive, right? Then do you know that the military strategist Student Zhuge Wei divined a hexagram back then? He told me! All of this is just a huge trap!"

"Humans or demons, they are just a bunch of walking cattle and sheep, or perhaps a bunch of chess pieces, ultimately unable to escape destruction!"

"Since that's the case, why should I be foolishly treated as a chess piece and let the chess player manipulate me? I want to obtain powerful strength, I want to jump out of the chessboard, I don't want to be a chess piece, I want to be the one holding the chess piece!"

"My fate is determined by me, not by heaven!"

The strange man let out a hysterical roar, his eyes blood-red. Clearly, this person's mental state had long since gone wrong.

Seeing this, Ye Lin sighed helplessly.

"You misunderstood. I don't want to stand on the moral high ground to accuse you. If I were you back then, I would have made the same choice as you."

"I want to kill you because I think this behavior is beastly. If beastly people aren't cleared out, there will be more and more beasts in this world."

"In this world, one beast like me is enough."

"Of course, the most important thing is that to my wife, you are a top-grade material for strength advancement."