Chapter 1191
Leon had just regained consciousness. Controlling the body of the Abyssal Maggot, he lifted his head and immediately saw an Abyssal Blood Raven, more than ten times his size, charging at him like a mad beast.
Leon shook his head, somewhat annoyed as he looked at the Abyssal Blood Raven. He split off a tiny thread of his mental power—already the very limit the Abyssal Maggot could withstand.
In an instant, a dark red fireball, no larger than a human fist, appeared before the Abyssal Blood Raven. The fireball struck its body and swiftly exploded into a wave of flames, engulfing the raven.
The raging flames instantly burned the Abyssal Blood Raven to ashes.
After releasing an extremely weakened Fireball Spell, Leon felt a wave of exhaustion. A strong hunger gnawed at him from within, and his body was already starting to dehydrate. If he didn’t find water soon, he’d die of thirst before he ever starved.
Surveying the barren surroundings, Leon quickly pieced together what had happened here.
A deep red sun hung directly overhead in the sky. The air was bone-dry, not a trace of moisture anywhere, and every breath stung with blistering heat—each inhale felt like swallowing a mouthful of scalding sand.
Most of the Abyssal Maggot corpses scattered around were less than half a day old—clearly, they’d all hatched just before dawn.
As the sun rose, its scorching heat sent the temperature soaring. None of the Abyssal Maggots survived, and more than half had their bodies completely dried out by the terrifying heat, leaving only shriveled husks behind.
Only Leon, the reincarnated Abyssal Maggot, survived. Out of tens of thousands of Abyssal Maggots, only Leon endured—though his body was on the verge of collapse.
If not for Leon, none of these tens of thousands of Abyssal Maggots would have survived even half a day...
Even under normal circumstances, if these maggots managed not to be scorched by the blazing sun, fewer than ten would survive a full day—and those few might well be devoured the next.
Whether it’s the carrion-feeding Abyssal Blood Ravens or the demons themselves, all see Abyssal Maggots as food. In most regions of the Abyss, the environment is so brutal even demons can barely endure it, making the tender, juicy maggots a delicacy to be swallowed whole.
Any creature in the Abyss can treat an Abyssal Maggot as food. Were it not for their terrifying reproductive abilities, they’d have been wiped out long ago.
That’s why, when other Heaven-tier beings saw Leon reincarnate as the lowest of the low—a creature that could be eaten by anything—they all assumed he was doomed.
No one believed Leon would willingly choose to become an Abyssal Maggot. It was a death sentence. If luck spared you from being roasted alive, you’d open your eyes only to face an Abyssal Blood Raven dozens of times stronger than you...
Yet no one realizes that the Abyssal Maggot is truly the most terrifying creature in the Abyss—it’s the only one not shackled by bloodline limitations.
Right now, not a single demon in the Abyss takes Abyssal Maggots seriously. Not until eight thousand years later, when one maggot, favored by fate, somehow survives for an entire year.
For an ordinary Abyssal Maggot, surviving three months is a once-in-a-millennium miracle. Yet, against all odds, one maggot lives a whole year without being killed.
And then, something terrifying happens. After a year of instinctive devouring, that maggot accumulates enough mana and breaks free—shedding its Abyssal Maggot shell to become a Crawler, an ordinary abyssal creature.
From then on, this seemingly ordinary subterranean crawler continues to gather mana. Upon reaching level ten, it evolves again, becoming a Bladewalker Demon—an abyssal creature bearing demon blood.
At level twenty, it transforms into a low-tier Brute Demon; at thirty, it becomes a member of the Bronze Demon Bloodline.
At thirty-five, it evolves into the Silver Demon Bloodline. By forty, as it breaks through into a transcendent being, it joins the ranks of the Ten Great Golden Demon Bloodlines...
But it doesn’t end there. As time passes, this former Abyssal Maggot keeps evolving—rising from the lowest of the Ten Golden Demon Bloodlines to the top three.
When it surpasses the demon lords and becomes a demon overlord, the most significant change in Abyssal history occurs: a demon that transcends even the Ten Golden Demon Bloodlines emerges!
After resting for a while, Leon carefully gathered a sliver of mental power, summoned a trace of water element, and condensed it into a fist-sized ball of water. Then he opened his mouth and swallowed the entire water ball.
After drinking the ball of water, Leon finally felt alive again. His dehydrated body rapidly recovered to peak condition, and he even felt a bit stronger.
Damn, truly a tenacious creature. Even after losing a third of its body's water, it didn't die. With a little rehydration, it takes less than three seconds to bounce back to peak form.
As long as I keep devouring mana, once I reach level five, I'll be able to shed this Abyssal Maggot form. This shape attracts too much trouble—anything out there can treat me as food...
This has never changed in all the history of the Abyss. Bloodline and race almost always determine one’s ceiling—no one breaks past their limits.
Only the lowest of the low—the Abyssal Maggot—is exempt from this rule. It possesses unlimited evolutionary potential. According to all the magisters’ research in Norsend, the first life to ever emerge from the endless Abyss was likely the Abyssal Maggot, and every other abyssal creature is its descendant.
After Norsend entered the Age of Magical Explosion, the one and only large-scale invasion was meticulously recorded. The research literature on Abyssal Maggots far exceeds even the works of some flame-igniting magisters.
A brute demon relying solely on physical strength, even if reincarnated, would lose all magical power.
Given the choice, of course Leon picked the Abyssal Maggot...