Eternal Thief

Ace's eyes instantly contracted as he felt a mysterious pressure from these words or more accurately from that black timber and the pain in his soul slightly spiked. He pivoted his eyes away. But his heart suddenly raced as he thought,

'A soul-type material!' 

He instantly distinguished the black timber and thought in astonishment, 'These demons seemed really rich, even using a soul-type material for mere name decoration. It seemed teleported here might not be a bad thing. If they had spare soul-type material for mere decoration, then they will definitely have more of them!' 

Ace's eyes instantly lit up as he thought of this possibility. He finally saw hope to heal his gravely damaged soul core and once his soul core was completely healed, his true soul will heal by his soul core! 

'But first, I have to find a way to remain alive since these demons would not leave me alive if they found nothing, nor if they found anything! At least I have to stall until the system's upgrade is done!' 

Ace looked at the reaming time of the system's upgrade. 

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[System Upgrade is underway, please wait plenty!]

[Time: 23:25:59] 

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Ace's heart sank, seeing only half an hour have passed, and he knew this was going to be the longest 23 hours of his life. 

Those demons' guards didn't know what Ace was planning and quickly take him toward the back of this Demon Duke Livy Mansion, where a small building was located. 

However, the moment they entered the small building, the Demon Guard Leader place his hand on a plain wall and instantly a green complex array structure lit up and shimmered and the very next moment the wall slid upward as an underground passage appeared. 

Ace's eyes narrowed when he saw that new type of array that opened with flesh, not a key or array plate, he was accustomed to dealing with those arrays or formations which always had a simple core and key, but this array was much more complex and cumbersome. 

'Escaping this place will not be easy.' Ace's expression was gloomy. He knew, even if he had his soul-type skills, he wouldn't be able to see through these arrays! 

At the end of this stairway, it was lit with soft light.

Ace felt many soul signatures and all of them had a very weak Qi fluctuation at this moment. His heart was heavy as he believed they were probably other prisoners, and they didn't seem to do well. 

There were many small, separated chambers covered with transparent barriers and one could see the persons inside from outside. Those prisoners were mostly rogue demons, but they all had unique characteristics than these blue skin demons. 

'So, there is more than one type of demon!' 

Ace suddenly figure it out, and he felt even more apprehended since he was the only person of a different race here, and they didn't seem to even care about their own kind, much less a foreign 'infiltrator' like him! 

<br/>"Hoh… what have we here?" An icy voice with a hint of intrigue rang before another tall, burly built demon in a unique set of robes that these guards come in front of these demon guards. 

The demon guard leader and the other nine guards quickly give a light bow to this demon, which showed he was higher ranked than them. 

"Warden Cane, we detained this creature lying in the middle of city avenue and according to the witnesses, he seemed to have appeared out of thin air!" The demon guard leader sternly described the strange events related to Ace. 

Ace nearly rolled his eyes when this demon called him a 'creature', even though the difference between them was only horns and skin color. But this also implied they didn't know his species, which also means humans were not 'regulars' in this place, or they probably didn't dare to enter. The latter seemed to be the more accurate reasoning. 

"Fascinating, he crossed four provinces without being discovered by other 'Demon Kings' and even cross all those territories of our brethren. 

"This is probably the first time in the history that an infiltrator reached this far deep in Mighty Demon Continent! Leave him here. I'll report this to Duke Livy and you all get your rewards for this contribution to Ocean  demon city." Warden Cane nodded in satisfaction as he looked at Ace with a stony gaze.     

Ace's heart palpitated when he heard Warden Cane's astonishing words, and he knew his situation was much graver than he thought and thought resentfully. 'It's all that black-hearted system's fault!' 

"As you command!" Demon Guard Leader quickly do as he was told and handed Ace over to Warden Cane's custody and left the dungeon with his fellow guards. 

"Shadow, 'clean' him and locked him in a special cell, I'll have to report this to Duke Livy as quick as possible, he'll probably jump in joy since we capture this intruder which even escaped four demon kings' provinces!" Warden Cane chuckles coldly as he turned around and left toward the other exit. 

Ace was still pinion with golden rope, and he knew things were not looking good for him. He had to quickly escape this place or else he'll probably torture to death. 

The very next moment, a figure materialized from Warden Cane's shadow. It was completely covered in a tight black dress and wearing a faceless mask. 

This person was two meters tall and appeared to be a woman, by her curvaceous figure. However, her eyes were completely black, and she was sporting a pair of black pronghorn horns. 

Ace instantly knew this was Shadow, who Warden Cane just commanded, and she was probably another subspecies of demons. But her stealth skill was even more astonishing because he didn't sense her presence until she showed herself!

Shadow impassively looked at Ace with the slightest hint of curiously as she took control of that Golden Rope and took him deeper in the dungeon.

Ace was entered a gloomy area in the 'guidance' of Shadow and his expression turned rigged when his eyes landed on a small pool filled with boiling red liquid which smelled like potent acid! 

Shadow didn't seem to care about Ace's opinion on that red liquid pool as she nonchalantly removed the storage ring that Ace was wearing and throw him in the red liquid like she was throwing trash! 

Ace held his breath and brace himself as he knew these demons wanted him alive, so they won't kill him without getting some answer, so this liquid was probably for 'cleaning' that Warden Cain order Shadow to do. 

However, the moment he entered this red liquid, Ace didn't feel any discomfort or pain of any sort. On the contrary, he was feeling quite warm as he was in a hot spring! 

But Ace's expression slightly changed when his clothes instantly melted, and he knew this wasn't just some normal 'bathing water' and it probably had some different purpose. 

Actually, this red liquid was a special liquid refined to melt everything under grade two treasures, so how could Ace withstand this torturous liquid? 

Very simple, it was related to his cultivation technique, Heavenly Crystal Body, unbeknownst to Ace, his body was refined by heavenly thunder two times under mysterious effects of this technique and his body was now as though as a Grade-2 weapon, or he would've melted within seconds after entering this red liquid.

It's just that Ace never practice any physical skills or didn't fight constantly, so he never truly noticed this aspect about him. Now, only a Qi river core cultivator's Qi can truly hurt him!

Typically, these demons use this red liquid to find any hidden treasure in a person's body and torture the prison even before the interrogation because if you're hiding a treasure even under your skin it'll only make the pain worse since that treasure will melt under your skin! 

However, these demons greatly underestimated Ace's body because, till now, no race seemed to possess a physique like demons. 

Because those demons were born with powerful bodies and further refine them with special methods like bathing in even more potent liquid than this red-one in this small pool. 

A demon's body was their deadliest weapon and in theory, its potential was so great that if one demon had resources and methods to refine their bodies to the limit, they can turn them into grade-8 weapons, it was the highest rank known to this day!   

Furthermore, just a grade one demon body was quite rare since the resources needed to refine to this level were humongous and the insufferable torturous pain, but it brings greater benefits as well because with every grade level-up a demon would unlock a super nature physical ability! 

Just as Ace felt something was amiss and looked toward Shadow and his expression sank because her brown eyelids were narrowed into slits and her black eyeballs were shining with ambiguity behind her mask as she saw Ace's completely fine figure in the red liquid!