Chapter 868 - 432:
Gauss looked around.
The surrounding ground was full of scars, with no signs of any living creatures.
If he hadn’t confirmed that he heard a familiar voice just now, he would’ve thought he was hallucinating.
"Are you still alive?"
Gauss cautiously used Spiritual Power to convey a voice.
"Yes."
The voice continued to come from beside him.
This time, Gauss was very certain he hadn’t heard wrong.
"Where are you then? I don’t see you."
Whether by the naked eye, Spiritual Power, or sixth sense, Gauss could not detect Eden’s presence.
"A Demon King Species like me is quite hard to kill completely." Eden’s voice came again. "You can consider me as waiting to be resurrected right now; at this moment, I don’t have a physical form and cannot be perceived."
"After a while, I will be reborn again."
Eden explained naturally.
Gauss had a moment of realization.
Why was Eden unafraid of death from the beginning? Turns out this is a special trait of the Demon King Species?
Further connecting this notion, to the title he had just acquired, "Demon King Slayer," its function was to grant the qualification to completely kill a Demon King.
Then, do all Demon King Species possess the power of immortality and regeneration?
"Do all Demon King Species not die?"
"And what is the Demon King Species?"
Conveniently, Eden had also mentioned Demon King Species, so Gauss could inquire about it.
After all, he seemed to have never heard of similar knowledge, at most only knowing about the existence of the Demon Race and Demon Kings.
"No, not all Demon King Species can be immortal like Eden."
"According to the inherited knowledge, only a small portion of Demon King Species possess this ability, and Demon King Species is a special qualification that only a very few demons possess, among which only one can become a Demon King."
"As for what the Demon King Species is, I actually am not very clear."
"When I woke up in this body, I was already a Demon King Species."
"Woke up?" Gauss captured another word from Eden that confused him.
"Yes." Eden’s voice couldn’t help but feel nostalgic. "Before coming to this body, I was actually a human."
"But that should be a very long time ago."
"After I died, my memories fell into chaos, and later I was born into this slime body."
"I traveled the outside world for some time, and due to an accident, I stumbled into this maze, where time was completely frozen."
"Until your arrival, the time within the maze started to flow again."
"I see."
Gauss also understood why earlier, Eden, the Slime Eden who is a demon, showed friendliness towards him, a human.
Moreover, the strong desire to communicate had an explanation. In the maze, it should lack many objects for communication, even among Mushroom People who possess decent Intelligence, they are ultimately demons.
The thinking of demons and humans is different.
"Didn’t expect a human soul could reincarnate into a monster’s body."
It was the first time he heard of such a thing.
He knew some special professionals could transform themselves into demons, but Eden’s case was clearly not such.
"I am not sure either; my case probably happens very rarely." Eden’s voice had some confusion.
After the maze opened, it became intensely confused about its own existence.
Moreover, with no one to communicate with around it, despite becoming the lord of the fifth layer of the maze, it always lived a reclusive life, not bothering to command the demons on this layer, just let them be free.
However, the Mushroom People misunderstood something and started to domesticate slimes that looked similar to it.
Initially, there weren’t many slimes on this layer, only sporadically.
It was under the diligent breeding of the Mushroom People that the slime species greatly expanded in number.
Only when Gauss and the others entered the fifth layer did Eden feel that familiar yet strange aura again, hurriedly coming to meet with Gauss and the others.
Gauss quietly exchanged a few more words with Eden, feeling like he gained a lot of insight about demons.
Turns out, wanting to become a Demon King requires meeting the precondition of having the Demon King Species qualification.
And not only can slimes possess the Demon King Species qualification; other demons have a probability too.
After possessing the Demon King Species qualification, one naturally becomes stronger than other demons and has a portion of inherited knowledge and abilities. Of course, Demon King Species is not born extremely powerful; they merely have better talents than regular demons. If they do not strive, they might not be more powerful than ordinary demons.
As for Eden, the King of Slime, it’s a living example.
According to its own words, it did not work too hard in cultivation.
Most of the time was spent sleeping, yet the talent of the Demon King Species still quietly raised it to Level 9 and easily equipped it with combat prowess that spans multiple levels.
Yes, when Eden fought Gauss, it did not unleash 100% of its full strength.
To it, becoming stronger seemed irrelevant.
Since it won’t die anyway, even if temporarily "killed," it would resurrect after some time.
In the early days, it even tried committing suicide, but not long after, it was reborn.
Moreover, having a segment of past human memories made it naturally feel quite awkward with its current slime body. Sometimes, it can’t help but wonder if genuinely dying again could let it resurrect into a human body?