1610: Silver Empire

Silver Empire

Leonel kept hearing the name of this empire come up again and again. But oddly enough, the Void Palace hadn't had much information on it. One would think that one of the most powerful Empires of the Human Domain would be well documented. After all, wasn't the point of the Void Palace to act as an alliance of humans?2

But if what Aina was saying was true, maybe it was the case that the Silver Empire was destroyed because of their connection to demons? This wasn't impossible considering the situation in this Zone and how the two races seemed to be like fire and water. This would also explain why Leonel didn't understand anything about this Zone despite the fact he believed it might be Mythological.

If the history of the Silver Empire was mostly erased outside of some vague information passed by word of mouth from time to time, then it was highly likely that any fairy tale this world was based on could have been erased as well, if for nothing other than to hide the connection.

But there was a very glaring issue with all of this…

If the Silver Empire could form Chaos Demons, Leonel didn't believe for a single second that the powers of the Human Domain could ever destroy them.

Just from these last few weeks of interacting with Fiend Class Demons, Leonel realized just how large the gap was. If Leonel had to rank himself, he was probably somewhere between a Middle and Higher Fiend Class demon in talent and strength, and he could use his mind and tricks to bridge the gap.

Simply put, if the Silver Empire had been formed of a bunch of Leonel's, how could the Human Domain have possibly destroyed them?

Of course, Leonel thought of the possibility that they had actually been destroyed by another race, but he threw that idea out immediately.

If another race infiltrated the Human Domain deeply enough to destroy the Silver Empire, why would the Human Domain even still exist at all? And even if Leonel was willing to accept that their only target was the Silver Empire and they left everyone else alone, that wouldn't explain why much of the Silver Empire's history had been wiped.

The only thing that made sense was that the humans themselves wiped out the Silver Empire… But even that was lacking because the strength Leonel had seen humans display until now shouldn't be enough…

In that case, it was likely a complex cobweb of internal strife and external pressure that led to their collapse. Things were rarely, if ever, just one dimensional in their complexity, especially when the topic was real world politics, powers and organizations.

There was also one more possibility that Leonel hadn't fully considered as well.

'Let's say that the Silver Empire really was able to access the strength of demons in all their glory and they also had little to no internal strife—or at the very least, not enough to cause them to collapse. How, then, would they have fallen to humans?

'It's very much possible that the core difference here isn't in being a demon, but rather… Force manipulation.'

Leonel's gaze flashed, a possibility coming to him.

Why was it that he struggled so much against the cobra demon? Of course that demon was very physically strong, but what really set it apart was its magnificent use of Force. It took a fairly ordinary Force and turned it into an insurmountable mountain Leonel couldn't even climb.

Thankfully, dying had been the catalyst for Leonel's soul to separate from his body, resulting in his mind gaining a boost that made him immune to the demon's suppression of it. But that was ultimately the largest issue by far.

From what Leonel had seen, though, the Human Domain didn't have such Force manipulation abilities at all. Could it be, then, that the demons of the Silver Empire hadn't been as towering and undeafeatable as the demons in this Zone?

If that was the case, things would make a little bit more sense and the humans might have been able to destroy the Silver Empire given enough willingness to sacrifice.

There was a very easy method of telling, though. Leonel didn't really have to guess.

"How powerful are you now?" Leonel asked.

Considering Aina had killed those three, including Thaela who Leonel couldn't do anything against, her strength should be very great.

"Don't overestimate me too much," Aina laughed lightly. "I might have killed those three, but the truth is that there was a huge battle royale that broke out before you returned."

"Oh?"

"Yes. A lot of the top 10 came out in quick succession, the gap between them was very small. So, obviously, those that lost out wanted to fight for the chance they lost out on.

"There was a huge battle in the center of the world and they all ended up heavily injured. Half of those injuries on them weren't even caused by me to begin with.

"They caught sight of me afterward when the fighting was finished. They thought the gap was large enough that they didn't have to worry about their injruies, but luckily they were wrong.

"Right now, I probably just caught up to you again. I didn't have enough time to meditate on the Gold Tablet any more, but there should be a lot of room to improve. I've noticed that this world has a very unique method of using Force that I still can't quite understand, do you?"

Leonel fell into silence hearing this question.

First, Aina's words confirmed that she, and likely the Silver Empire, were unable to pull out the greatest strength of their demon bodies. That leaves a path for the humans to kill them.

But secondly, it seemed that she had noticed what he had as well.

"I've been thinking about that too, and I think I probably have an answer, but its really complicated. I'm not quite sure how to take the first step. But if I were to explain it as simply as possible… Why are Weapon Forces the only ones that can evolve? It's likely that all Forces have an evolution path."

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