My Living Shadow System Devours To Make Me Stronger Chapter 1283 - 1284: Death Of Friend

"Is this hell?" Lilith whispered softly to herself.

"No. It’s something worse." Paimon’s voice came from behind her as she touched the back of a large dromedary. The large creature was dead, its blood having formed a vast lake around them, and Paimon was floating on top of it.

This was her companion of many years, the creature that had been chosen to be her mount.

Far off in the distance, everyone was fighting each other. Those who had managed to escape the range of that senseless slaughter were either shaken or broken.

A man looked at his sword and the blood on it. He had joined the final battle alongside his brother. They had survived everything together, yet with his own hands, he had struck down his brother, consumed by the madness of war.

No one could see what was causing it, but even here, Lilith could feel it. She could see a red energy rising in the air, many hundreds of miles away from where they were. It fed off the very conflicts that drove them.

She looked down, and in her arms was a weakened and injured Renata. Blood glistened at the corners of her mouth and nose, and she was getting colder and paler by the minute.

Renata had survived the fall into this world, but then a scorpion-tailed Outsider had struck her with its tail, and she had succumbed to the poison. Lilith should have been the one in this condition. After all, Renata had ended up like this while trying to help her. They would have died if Paimon, one of the Demon Lords, hadn’t joined them. Together, they had finally managed to kill the Outsider.

The number of Outsiders had drastically decreased. It wasn’t because the people of this world had killed them. It was simply because they were killing each other.

It was quite pathetic. The entire world had come together to face these invaders, and when the Outsiders realized how much more powerful they were, they had decided to turn on each other instead.

The Outsiders belonged to different factions, and the moment they entered this world, they had no reason to work together.

After all, they were here for their prize, and the Unknown God was waiting for someone to obtain it for him.

Lilith hadn’t made it in time for the final battle. She had been too late. All she had seen was chaos, and she had witnessed the horror of the Pillar.

"So that’s the Pillar of Conflict." Paimon pushed her hair to the side.

A meteor fell from the sky, and a woman with ashen hair streaked with red landed in front of them.

"Where is he? Where is that blind old man?" Seras asked coldly.

Lilith wiped the blood from Renata’s mouth as her body shivered from the pain.

"Renata, hold on. Please, don’t die."

Seras sighed, scratching her head before lowering her hand and placing a finger beneath Renata’s nose.

"She doesn’t have very long. There’s nothing we can do for her."

Lilith slapped her hand away.

"Keep your cursed opinions to yourself! She’s not going to die. I won’t allow it. I won’t let her die!"

Seeing Lilith’s tears, Seras lowered her hand and nodded.

She looked at the battle in the distance before whispering, "What is that red energy?"

"You can see it?" Lilith whispered. As far as she knew, no one could see it except her. Paimon could see it as well, but she was Paimon, so that was no surprise. No one else seemed able to perceive it, yet that energy had trapped everyone within its range in a frenzy.

"Yes, I can. I’ve been able to sense a lot of things after my time on the Sky Continent."

Seras had spent a long time around the Abyss. She had seen things and learned things she hadn’t even been aware of before.

"Cough, cough, cough!"

Renata coughed, blood spewing from her mouth.

Lilith tried to hold her down as she convulsed, her expression growing more desperate with every passing moment.

"You and Damon were involved with the Unknown Order. I mean, you practically founded it."

Lilith raised her head, giving her a tired look.

"We created it to destroy the Temple. It was years ago, and we were nothing but dumb children. If the price for its destruction was the whole world, I would rather have given up on revenge."

"Revenge?" Paimon raised her brows.

Lilith glanced at Renata, whose head was resting on her thighs.

"My nanny was a demon from the Temple. I’m not sure if you knew her, but her name was Ishana. She died protecting me when the Temple sent its Templars to hunt us..."

"Ishana? I knew her. She was one of my sisters. She left us, though. I suppose she interpreted the Unknown God differently from the rest of us..." Paimon didn’t need to think for long to remember her. She knew all the women in the Snake Temple.

"So you kicked her out?" Lilith gritted her teeth, feeling a tinge of anger on Ishana’s behalf.

"Kicked her out? Goddess, no! Why would we kick her out over something like that? Faith in the Unknown isn’t even really a faith. This is a god who doesn’t even care about worship. Those of us on the Demon Continent worship the Goddess of Doom, even in the Snake Temple."

Paimon’s wings fluttered slightly before she moved to stand in front of Seras, who had once been her enemy.

"Ishana believed that the Unknown was neither god nor evil. She believed that, rather than being the extreme of both, he reflected what people gave him. If you gave him evil, then evil you would receive, but a heartfelt and pure wish or prayer would be met with an equivalent response. The Unknown was merely searching for understanding. He wanted to be understood and hated having to understand others... Of course, we dismissed her nonsense, so she threw a temper tantrum and left, calling us selfish blasphemers who didn’t care for our god."

Her tone was flat and casual, as if she were talking about a minor incident.

"A heartfelt wish..." Lilith whispered softly.

"That’s nonsense," Seras said softly, breaking her train of thought.

"Unknown is evil. I should know. I was toyed with by the Abyss, and I have seen things you can’t even imagine. And that’s just outside the Abyss. What greater evil would I have witnessed if I had fallen inside his dark gaze?"

"I didn’t expect you to be a faithful," Paimon said as a distant explosion illuminated the world for miles. A severing wind reached them, and blood and organs sprayed into the air alongside the dismembered corpses of the weak.

"I’m not," Seras said coldly. How could she be faithful to a god who had destroyed her homeworld?

"Cough, cough."

Renata’s condition worsened, and she began coughing up black sludge instead of blood.

Lilith was even more miserable. Her expression was downcast as she held Renata while the other two talked.

Seras glanced at them, took out a healing potion, and knelt beside Lilith.

"That won’t work. I tried it. It will only make things worse."

Seras lowered her head over Renata’s chest.

"I’m sorry, Renata. I’m so sorry. This is all my fault. I was the one who dragged you into this... I was the one who dragged Damon into this. I... I am so sorry..."