49 The Demons Gift and Trouble (1/2)

Right now, the Demon was heading behind the overgrown tree along with twenty attendance carrying Stigma's body on a pillowed stretcher, while the remaining spectators stayed behind to reconstruct the damage done from their fight.

With the previous battle, Stigma's soul had sustained too much injury to allow the Demon to return him to his body or it would affect in his health in the future.

When the Demon gained the ability to think a stream of information had entered its mind, all of which was how the realm function and the position of such areas. So it new where to go along with the residence.

As they went closer behind the tree, their footing have changed from roots to stone pavements, the pathway they followed had lead downwards into the tree's roots with a stone gate guarding passageway.

On each side of the wall light lanterns were hanged leading further inside, as one would look closer each was patterned with a different design: from one lantern one can see the design of small animals running in a forest, another had flowers blooming from the coming spring, or even water flowing down a stream or a mountain.

If one stops to admire each on they last until the entire day to understand each piece.

From a third person's perspective, seeing about wenty faceless people carrying a mangled body of a child along with a horned demons following behind, made the image in whole looked like an offering ceremony to an evil deity.

As they got closer, the Demon had not once showed its playful character from before, instead it had showed a serious expression, emphasizing how serious the matter was when they enter here.

To this realm, the tree has the greatest value over everything else as it represents it lifestream, thus defensive measure were made to protect it from the best of their abilities.

One of the precautions was using the Heavenly Beast Souls that Stigma absorbed to act as guard dogs, since they only act by instinct, they would attack anything that was deemed a threat. However, these beast only follow orders to those who are superior or those who beat them to submission.

Another precaution was to use over two hundred or so attendance acting as support on logistics as well as long range attackers.

Some areas had numerous living stone statues as extra security when needed, if intruders entered.

Finally the Little Black Demon, once Stigma leaves, there has would no caretaker to this place, such that the Demon took it upon itself to be the overseer and the acting adviser during Stigma's absence. To add his own measure of defense, it had been placing seals and talismans all over important areas such as this Healing Spring, by using his knowledge on Demonic Arts.

The reason for protecting such a tree, was because it contains most of the energy that Stigma absorbed through the skill 'Soul Eater', be it elemental, Zen, pure, complete or incomplete; they must all go through this very tree.

Its overall function was to circulate the flow of Zen energy in the air as to maintain and heal the realm's areas along with the inhabitants, but its primary function was to keep any elemental energy from escaping out from his soul. Thus protecting it was the Demons first objective once he had laid eye on it.

The Demon had said to be born ahead of time but lacked any form intelligence, but after gained his free will, it began to form numerous formations of seals before Stigma's arrival. Preventing anyone excluding himself and Stigma along with anyone permitted to enter.

But such a task had to be rewarded.

In exchange for protecting such a treasure, as long as they remain there, the Demon along with denizens gain unlimited supply of Zen energy, along with limited immortality.

The energy that naturally flows through out the realm allows them to heal, along with strengthening themselves to a minor degree, but at the price that they must revert back to their lowest level - the Zero Tier.

But as Stigma grows, so does the Zen and the denizens. So if they remain in this realm, they are invincible.

As explained before, the Demon has the major role of managing the entire world: be it Daily Operations to delaget each task, Liaising or Meeting Stigma when he arrives via Death, Delegation to any new residence to their roles, Enforcing Policy by beating new residence into submission via force, as well as Self - Training via consumption of Zen energy along with Stigma's or Humans souls.

But it takes great priority into Security protocol, logistics on placing where the newly absorbed elemental energies should be placed. The Heavenly Beast Souls falls in that category as they follow the concept of being energy.

So far Stigma had absorbed about nine or so elements and about a dozen beast souls, each with different function and blessings. But the most prize one should be the Pure energy.

Pure energy is the prime element for healing arts, one of the most sought after abilities by all beings in the world because of its rarity. But Stigma's method to acquire it was unique, so it must follows conditions. That also applies under all categories.

Even with conditions, it had already proven itself to be quite effective, based on how the wolf leader's quick recovery when it absorbed it, then all its injuries vanished.

After going through a long pathway, they finally arrived to their destination - the healing spring. The spring was a circular pool filled with water with zero impurities, and the contents were enough to fill an entire family swimming pool.

As the name implies, this spring has special properties to produce healing effect. Once a soul baths in it, pain from wounds that were recently received or old wounds that date back dozens of years ago will recede and can help speed recovery once the soul returns and the body will heal in due time.

Another of its abilities was to remove stress, exhaustion and negative energy, but best of all it can even remove curses.

But this spring cannot be removed from this realm, since it will evaporate in the air.

From the ceiling the Demon can perfectly see the elements he had placed here, fire, water and pure energy was placed on the spring along with using the earth energy to maintains the ground to remove any impurities to mix.

After surveying the entire pool of water he signaled the attendance to place Stigma into the water and let him submerge.

After going through a one sided battle, exhaustion had hit Stigma making him pass out and unable to feel anything around him especially pain.

Starting from arms multiple bruising can be seen, it was Stigma's mistake to constantly block from the Demons right swings mistaking the difference in their strength was only by a margin. From his legs, visible blood veins could be seen from pushing his muscles beyond their capacity.

His hands had deep cuts from constantly pulling his makeshift rope to his limit, a set of his bones were broken from the ribs, femur and even his left arm. Due to the size difference, being crushed under the momentum and weight of the Demon was no laughing matter.

If Stigma's endurance and vitality wasn't boosted from the Beast, then he would have immediately died from the first drop or the first attack.

After being submerged for a few minutes, the Healing Spring started emitting light and Stigma's injuries were starting to heal, the torn flesh from his body were being recovered, his stiff bulging muscles were receding back to his body[1].

When the Demon saw that Stigma's face had turned from an unhealthy appearance then finally regaining its natural color. It finally returned to its playful demure.

”Wonderful...truly magnificent Dear Sir, your find on True energy is truly - divine....” After looking at Stigma's progress in healing, it returned back to the smiling Demon that only wants to annoy and jumped into the spring.

When it came in contact the spring it felt a small burning sensation, clearly the purity of the water was high enough for the Demon to gain injury. So the Demon stopped it's attempt to get closer, since it new the deeper it entered, the more the burning sensation will increase, so it only starred in the hourglass that one of the servants brought.