Chapter 191: Biology Lesson (1/2)

Looking at the Demon Fire Worm run off in two directions, I was suddenly reminded of a joke from Earth.

One boring day in the home of the earthworm family, the little earthworm had an idea to split himself into two for a round of badminton. The mama earthworm found it a great idea and decided to split herself into fours to play mahjong with herself. A while later, the papa earthworm turned himself into minced meat to which the mama earthworm asked, with tears in her metaphorical eyes: “Why are you so dumb, don’t you know that you will die when you split yourself so finely?” The papa worm weakly answered: “…I suddenly wanted to…play soccer…”

‘Soccer? Well, it’s worth a shot.’

I pointed at the worm which looked half dead by now and signalled for Big 4 to act: “Split it into tens and see what happens.”

“Understood, Master.”

Even though he didn’t understand why I wanted to harm the worm even further, he enacted it without question. Realizing that Mo Na might get a little spooked by the sight of us harming little animals…I turned around out of concern and found her actually watching with glee. Perhaps the thought of seeing it split up like that seemed interesting to her.

‘I guess it’s just me overthinking things again, like a devil would get spooked by little animals getting hurt…’

Devils weren’t like humans at all. Simply put, they were a higher existence who possessed an inherited pool of knowledge that saved them a lot of learning time. They were born with an innately strong constitution and the ability to regrow limbs. Once they gained the blessing of an original sin, their fire resistance would rise to a certain degree. Furthermore, it caused their body to evolve from a very basic lifeform to that of a more advanced species.

No matter how one looked at it, devils were clearly stronger than humans and yet they never managed to conquer the human realm…thus humans could not be underestimated as well. Though they were born weak, they possessed infinite potential.

However, all that was a story for another day.

Having been quartered, the Demon Fire Worm lost the ability to crawl. After it was turned into minced meat, it was clearly and beyond any shred of doubt, dead. It was an interesting set of results to be sure but the overall outcome was that it proved how strong their survivability was. Moreover, this trait might just be a common ability of those living in Purgatory.

“There’s no soul?” I asked, clearly shocked. Every living creature had a soul, and this worm shouldn’t be an exception or so I thought. Upon dying however, the expected soul didn’t appear and instead, a husk of a soul could be seen dissipating into the air.

‘Don’t tell me their regeneration ability had something to do with their souls as well?’

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In order to figure the whole case of the disappearing soul, I had No.3 and Big 4 make another trip back to the lava river to catch another worm. Naturally, they were free to catch whatever fascinating lifeform they encountered on the way as well.

It had to be said however, lest I be confused for some sicko, I wasn’t doing this out of sheer boredom, rather it was in order to learn about the environment in Purgatory. Perhaps the two might have sounded unrelated but they were most definitely not.

In order to adapt to their environment, living creatures would change to meet the challenges they faced. For example, pesticides, when used often and without change, might lead to the pests evolving resistances to said chemicals. Those who couldn’t survive would be wiped out and this would continue till, finally, the pests adapted.

Logically speaking, that should apply here as well, on that worm for example.

It didn’t take long for No.3 and Big 4 to return, having done the same not too long ago. As expected, they managed to catch another lifeform for me to experiment on. No.3 had two worms while Big 4 had in one hand, a worm, and in the other, he held a dark red fish and a salamander.

“Master, we caught something new.” Big 4 raised the fish and salamander as he called out to me: “While we were catching the worms, we so happened to stumble upon this fish chasing after a worm so we caught it.”

The fish in question was most likely a Fire Devouring Fish. It was roughly half a meter long, had a giant mouth full of teeth that made it look like a piranha from Earth. Unlike those carnivorous fish however, the Fire Devouring Fish had a sturdy set of scales protecting it as if it was wearing a shiny set of armor.

The Fire Devouring Fish were the nemesis of the Demon Fire Worms, and treated them as their staple source of food. Based on their outer appearances alone, I concluded that these fish most likely had a powerful attack of some sort.

“First, I want a worm quartered.” That job was handed over to No.3 because…they truly disgusted me.

No.3 immediately set about doing his job. Stomping on one of the worms to prevent it from escaping, he then ripped the other worm into quarters.

Just like the previous worm we quartered, it slowly lost its lifeforce and just as it was about to die off, I spotted fragments of its soul dissipating into the air.

‘Was the reason because it was split up into too many sections?’

“Bleed the other worm dry, I want to see if it will die.”

It went without saying that it would die in the end; that wasn’t the point of the experiment however. The moment the last drop of its blood left its body, the worm died as expected and an intact soul popped out of its body.