Ghost Knight King's Dungeon Project

Chapter 63 [The Demon Race, the Demon Race.]

The underground smelting workshop was silent, the dim room illuminated by the pale flames of the enchanted charcoal.

The furnace roared and howled, its pale light flickering in the workshop room. The firelight shone brightly, illuminating the hollow sides of the armor and leaving distinct lines of light and shadow on the angular edges of the bronze surface.

Half of the knight's helmet was illuminated, while the other half was shrouded in darkness.

Samael pressed the bronze gauntlets onto the scorching furnace.

[Psionic circuit structure activated: Wujin Conversion]

As a material used as a psionic conductor, the Nether Copper surrounded the furnace, rapidly generating a winding, wavy circuit of runes, resembling some kind of strange, alien circuit.

[Witchcraft Gold Refining Method: Use porous carbon that absorbs spiritual energy to heat gold to a molten state. Place the porous carbon and molten gold together in the inner ring of the Witchcraft Gold Conversion Circuit. After the flame of the product turns dark blue (approximately four to five hours), you will obtain the product, Witchcraft Gold.]

[Multiple loops can reduce the smelting and conversion time of the maggot, but the shortest time should not be less than the critical time, which is about one hour.]

The triple magic conversion circuit is firmly bound around the furnace, resembling three complex rings of runes.

A soft, clinking sound echoed in the darkness as Archie Yeviel grabbed a handful of Erdrick coins and placed them into the crucible. The gold-cast royal emblems of the sword crown and iron crown on both sides of the coins, along with pansies, filled the crucible, gleaming with a faint, golden light.

The enchanted charcoal in the furnace was burning vigorously. Samael placed the ceramic crucibles made by the demon artisans into the furnace chamber and used a scanner to check the melting point and durability of the materials, confirming that such crucibles could properly melt gold.

Instead of using crucible tongs, he extended his bronze gauntlets, held a small cup of gold coins as if it were a wine glass, and dipped them into the furnace fire, placing them on the shelf.

Pale demonic flames licked at the arm armor, but the furnace fire contained only demonic charcoal. The charcoal had no strange smell, only a dull weariness that made one wish to sleep underground for hundreds of years like in a coal mine.

He closed the furnace door to prevent the heat from escaping. The firelight was then obscured, and in the darkness, the two stood quietly beside the furnace.

“Tell me about the demonic dungeons,” Samael said in a low voice, gazing at Archie in the darkness behind the furnace. “How could an alien underground colony possibly need living sacrifices to sustain itself?”

Yachi shrugged.

“I don’t know what an alien underground colony is,” he replied. “Our demonic dungeons can create a rich ecosystem in the desolate demonic realm, but to maintain it, we need to consume psionic energy.”

"The surface environment of the desolate demon realm is harsh, and meteorological disasters occur frequently, making it unsuitable for even demons to live in. Therefore, we will live underground and use underground cities to transform the barren underground space into lush gardens."

"The process of transformation will naturally involve absorbing and consuming psionic energy—psionic energy is everything in the dungeon, which is only natural."

"An energy source?" Samael asked.

“Pretty much,” Archie replied. “The construction and daily operation of the dungeon require a lot of psionic energy. Over the long period of its existence, the dungeon will continuously and slowly deplete the psionic energy of the surrounding ecosystem, causing the ecosystem to gradually deteriorate and become just ordinary plants and animals.”

Samael was taken aback.

“Isn’t that the habitable zone?” he asked.

“Yes.” Yachi shrugged. “The habitable zone is very barren for demons—we need to constantly ingest psionic energy to maintain our active state and positive personality.”

"In other words, the demonic dungeons will absorb and consume the spiritual energy in the surrounding environment, gradually turning the demonic realm into a habitable zone," Samael organized his thoughts.

"Yes."

"Then why do the demons insist on maintaining the psionic environment of the dungeons?" Samael asked, "They can live normally in the habitable zone."

"They cannot live a normal life—a prolonged lack of psionic energy will cause demons to become thin, sickly, haggard, cowardly, decadent, and depressed, eventually dying—and in an exceptionally painful way."

“This is called the Demon Race’s ‘Deterioration.’ Demon children born in this state will suffer from malnutrition and severe deterioration—such children are usually expelled from the dungeon and become our exiles.” Archie pointed to his chest.

“You call this weak, listless, and depressed?” Samael looked at Yachi. “You are the most outstanding craftsman I have ever seen.”

“Thank you for the compliment, boss, but I know my place. You think that way because you’ve never seen a healthy, strong dungeon demon craftsman.” Archie shrugged. “I’m just a degraded, exiled demon, a stray dog ​​without a city.”

“Normal dungeon demon artisans possess craftsmanship skills and control over magical beasts that are dozens, even hundreds of times greater than those of our degraded demons. True demon artisans do not use tools; relying solely on psionic energy, they can forcibly shape molten stone and quenched metal, forging sturdy and durable sharp swords, carving tall and magnificent sculptures, and constructing towering palaces in just a few minutes.”

“Normal dungeon demons also have extremely strong physical abilities… Boss, do you remember the hunter Musa who kidnapped Old Duke?” He looked up.

“I remember,” Samael replied. “He was probably an elite warrior of the demon race, wasn’t he?”

“Among the demons in the dungeon, Musa can only be considered an average warrior.” Yachi smiled. “Among healthy high-level demon warriors, he probably wouldn’t even be considered a top-tier powerful individual.”

Samael's gauntlet trembled slightly for a moment.

"Moreover, healthy demons can go for months without sleep and still be energetic and have a normal mind—Boss Ronoway was able to escape from that hunter's pursuit for so long thanks to this terrifyingly powerful physique—although she is only a hybrid, she still inherited the bloodline of a high-level demon, and was born in the spiritual energy-rich dungeon of Rondoran."

"All demons yearn to live in powerful dungeons... The rich psionic environment of dungeons makes us stronger, healthier, and more comfortable. Demon children born in powerful, psionic dungeons also become very strong."

"The exiles, on the other hand, are children born in dying, low-spiritual-energy dungeons or in habitable zones outside the dungeons. They are degraded demons. The lack of spiritual energy has caused us to degrade severely, making us thinner and weaker than healthy demons, and more cowardly in character. As a result, we have been expelled from the social sphere of normal demons."

“My parents lived in a dying, weak dungeon. After I was born, they abandoned me when they realized my constitution had deteriorated significantly.” Yachi said expressionlessly. “This is a tradition of the demon race—because a degraded, inferior offspring brings shame to all strong, healthy demons.”

“We live like stray dogs, like vagrants, bowing down to the monarchs of different dungeons, begging for psionic resources to keep our lives from deteriorating further.”

"That's why we love Lord Rondoran so much, even though he died in the ruins of the northern mountain kingdom, in a dark corner where even the aurora borealis couldn't illuminate him—because Rondoran allowed us, such lowly and degraded races, to live freely without discrimination."

"That's why all the exiles were so excited and happy when you announced that you were going to build an underground city... We are no longer stray dogs, we have two stable owners, and a safe and peaceful underground city home."

Samael's gauntlets trembled slightly for a moment, making a soft metallic clanging sound.

“Our loyalty to the monarch also stems from this—for the sake of the dungeon, the monarch infused every inch of the soil with his ruling psionic energy, nourishing this lush ecosystem with psionic energy. This is a great sacrifice that can be described as a sacrifice—we are willing to give our lives for the demon king.”

Yachi looked calmly at Samael.

"There are many demons, and many powerful demons, but few powerful demons are willing to dedicate themselves to building dungeons. Among them, even fewer demons successfully build dungeons. To be able to follow a king is already a great honor."

Samael stood quietly, watching the flames peeking through the crack in the furnace door, which gradually turned from pale white to blue.

A faint light flickered on the helmet.

"Is psionic energy a non-renewable resource?" he asked.

“It was a gift from the gods,” Archie said, leaning against the wall of the forge. “But the gods are gone, and there will be no more psychic energy.”

"In the beginning, they infused psychic energy into the earth where stars fell. The first demons built dungeons to shelter themselves from the burning stars crashing down on the barren land."

"Gradually, plants and animals emerged from the dungeons, making the land no longer barren. Elves, dwarves, and humans also appeared, but spiritual energy was being consumed less and less, and the demon race slowly declined."

“Sometimes I think that the fate of the demons is their end.” He stared blankly at the fire.

“Psionic energy is the coal in the furnace, and the demons are the initial flame, fighting over the last remaining pieces of coal just to make the fire burn brighter.”

"The flames will eventually die out. We pretend we can't see the end of the world, and sing our final festivities in the ever-colder hearth."

*Poof.* The flames in the crack of the furnace door turned from pale white to deep blue, and then went out abruptly.

dark.

chill.

A dark chill slowly crept up Samael's carapace. Logically, he shouldn't feel cold anymore, but a dark chill from long ago, traversing nearly a thousand years, had seized this otherworldly ghost.

Ants carried grains of rice through the shadows at their feet. Cave dwellers carried molten stone through the shadows outside the workshop.

The demon artisans carried psionic resources through the high dome of the underground city.

The descriptions of the cave dwellers and the space aliens gradually overlapped, and they were not much different.

They are all tool species.

Space aliens were deliberately designed this way. Whether it's their passion for work, their fanatical pursuit of craftsmanship, their dedication to garden ecology, or their heavy reliance on psionic energy.

These are all intentionally designed tool attributes.

He recalled the description of the space aliens in the previous entry. The text referred to space aliens as "natural alien pioneers."

They were pioneers, not residents.

This tool species is only fit for pioneering.

Once the pioneering is over, then it's time to die.

Those gods infused a barren planet with spiritual energy, then released space aliens and basic species, allowing them to consume the spiritual energy to transform the ecosystem. Once the ecosystem was transformed to be habitable, the spiritual energy was almost exhausted, and these useless things could slowly die.

Psychic energy is a crude yet highly efficient industrial fuel, which is why it is harmful to humans and must be consumed and eliminated.

He frantically searched for related terms like "space alien" in his UI, and finally found the text description at level nine of Artificial Life Science:
Space-based subhuman cultivation technology

Using human genes as a template, a large number of complex animal and plant genes were added. An etheric psionic signal generator was set up to perform Arklay cycle processing based on psionics to lock psionic dependencies, control life cycle, add artificial life stability lock, add social structure design, add gene function memory template, lock evolution and mutation paths, and generate a stable population after iterative breeding.

This was almost exactly as the cavemen had described… Samael felt his metallic body tremble slightly. He frantically typed the recurring keyword into the UI—[Arklay Loop Process].

[The Arklay Cycle is a product of the intersection of Level 7 Psionics and Level 9 Artificial Life Science.]

[By repeatedly infiltrating biological embryos through psionic circuits, a stable and clear psionic record is formed from the pre-set biological form, instincts, and natural attributes, and locked and fixed in the biological genes. This record is then passed down through generations to create intelligent tool species.]

Unlike the crude products created by basic artificial life science engineering, the advanced products of the Arklay cycle are capable of carrying basic intelligence and combining intelligence with biological instincts into pre-defined functional products.

[A magnificent masterpiece of artificial life science and psionics, born in the 6th Era, and one of the core technologies for the construction of alien colonies.]

[Remembering Loken Arklay (65325~65536), a pioneer in artificial life sciences.]

silence.

Deathly silence.

"Boss?" Archie asked tentatively, "Are you alright?"

“Yachi?” he said softly. “Have you ever thought about why the demons are like this? Why do they gradually weaken and die when they are separated from psionic energy? Why do they build dungeons? Why can't psionic energy regenerate?”

“How could I possibly know?” Archie shook his head. “These are questions that many demon scholars have been researching, including the renowned Red-brown Sage Valak, the Black Bottle Demon Berenno, and the Shark Island Wizard Goro, but they have yet to find a solution—how could I, a degraded exiled demon architect, possibly know?”

Samael remained silent.

“In the past, I was obsessed with many simulation building games,” he said in a low voice. “I used to treat the characters in the games as tools to be assigned at will, believing that efficiency was everything and that the characters existed only to work.”

“But all of this…all of this is different…I will never treat you as tools—even if you were created as tools.”

“You are my friends, my new family, my travel companions and partners.”

He reached into the furnace and took out a crucible, pouring its molten gold, which glowed with a bluish light, into the clay sword mold carved by Archie, and then inserted a piece of ghost copper as the spine of the sword.

"Not only that, I also intend to ask them why they did such a cruel thing—creating self-aware intelligent life as a tool."

The heat-absorbing properties of the Nether Bronze cause the molten gold to cool rapidly and solidify. Amidst the hissing white smoke, Samael's gauntlet trembled, and the Nether Bronze sword spine and the Witch Gold blade broke free from the mold.

“Whenever I think I’m about to build something, there’s always an invisible hand that destroys what I’ve poured my heart and soul into, uproots the flowers I’ve carefully nurtured, and I watch helplessly as the castles I’ve built crumble and the fortresses collapse.” He whispered, “I will not let any of this be destroyed again, no one.”

The blade of the Witch Gold Knight's Sword was speckled with bronze, and gleamed with a sharp, terrifying light in the cold.

“The Witch Gold Sword needs constant sharpening and careful maintenance. A well-sharpened blade is sharp enough to cut through Nether Copper, but it needs to be re-sharpened after at most two attacks,” Archie reminded him, handing him a small sharpening wheel.

“That’s enough.” Samael took the sharpening wheel and welded it to the outside of his arm armor using ghost copper.

He forged a bronze scabbard and sheathed the Witch Gold Knight Sword into its unassuming sheath, shielding it from the blinding light of the Witch Gold.

The chains at his waist jingled softly, and the Nether Bronze Sword and the Witch Gold Sword, suspended by the chains at his waist, swayed slightly.

"Do you know anything else about the gods?" Samael asked, looking at Yachi.

Yachi shook his head.

“Those ancient secrets related to the gods are only known to scholars of darkness. They usually avoid discussing them.” He shrugged. “Perhaps you should seek out a few scholars. Of course, demonic scholars of darkness are usually monarchs, or at least close confidants of the king. It would be very difficult for a demonic monarch of Valak's caliber to gain access to them…”

“No, no, wait a minute.” Samael waved his hand. “I think I know who to ask… The wife of Lord Rondoran is a human dark scholar, and her daughter is resting in the palace.”

As he turned to leave, he pondered what exactly his [Alien Underground Colony Construction System] was meant to build.

The demons' underground city was clearly not a so-called underground colony—in the eyes of the gods, the space demi-humans were just a group of automated tools. They would all die after completing the task of modifying the planet's surface ecology according to a preset program. How could they possibly be given a colony?
So, what exactly is this "alien underground colony"?
Besides the insect-path labyrinth and the demon's dungeon, is there anything else underground...?

He suddenly jolted awake.

Relics of the Age of Gods.

I had completely overlooked the ruins of the Age of Gods, even though they were the first underground structures I encountered. They were buried much deeper, firmly embedded in the strata, seamlessly integrated with the thick earth, and concealed countless secrets.

I was misled by the demons' information from beginning to end. The "Alien Underground Colony" isn't a dungeon, but rather a divine ruin located even deeper underground!

Samael strode through the streets of the underground city, the hollow clanging of his armor echoing between the pillars of the long corridors in front of the workshops and palace.

Two swords, bound by chains, hung from his waist and swayed back and forth, their hilts striking each other with a soft clattering sound.

A bronze sword might be able to pierce through a demon warrior.

A magic sword might be able to defeat the ghost knight.

However, more swords are needed to conquer the Heart of Bones.

To find the truth about the gods, more swords are needed.

The shadows of the gods loom over the gloomy sky of the skeleton, while deep within the rock strata beneath their feet, strange and unknown things continue to slowly writhe.

Samael felt a little cold.

It was as if he were in a giant chessboard, with an unseen hand gripping his waist and pushing him across the diagonally opposite black and white squares.

Ponziani starts, White Knight moves into F3.

(End of this chapter)