{Chapter: 45 [Death Plague] Second Phase Experiment}
The plague was more than a tool. It was an extension of his will. A silent, unseen servant that obeyed his every whim. It infected reality, danced through the veins of the world, waiting for his command.
He knew he was still at the beginning. His understanding of the plague was surface-level compared to what it could become. He believed it had the potential to transcend disease—to become a shaping force, a medium of creation and destruction alike.
He stared into the halo with renewed hunger.
"Could I... forge it into something that rivals even a nail of the 'Grandfather Nurgle' himself?" he whispered, referring to the mythical entity associated with plague and rot—a being revered and feared across countless dimensions.
That question lingered.
"Never make the mistake of underestimating plagues— they are the silent reapers of civilization. Across the vast tapestry of human history, no war—not even those waged with nuclear fire—has claimed as many souls as the rivers of death brought by unseen illness. Disease has always been humanity's most ruthless predator.
Even in worlds beyond Earth, where gods walk and miracles breathe, it was not swords or storms that brought the mighty Viltrumite Empire to its knees—it was a plague. A single virulent outbreak shattered their billions, reducing their proud, near-invincible race reduced to a handful. Not even their godlike genetics could save them.
In Naruto, the Uchiha Clan's Sharingan came with a terrible price—blindness and madness—an inherited sickness of power that even the strongest feared. Meanwhile, Kimimaro, with his bone manipulation kekkei genkai, was a one-man army—cut short not by battle, but by an incurable illness.
In Fullmetal Alchemist, Ishval was lost not just to war, but the deadly aftermath of alchemic and biological experiments—illness disguised as science.
Even The Flood in Halo, a parasitic plague, consumed entire species—threatening to wipe out all sentient life in the galaxy, regardless of strength or technology.
And what, truly, are mutants if not walking anomalies of infection—organic anomalies of unstable evolution, unpredictable and contagious in nature? Some might even call them the next great plague.
Even icons of invincibility weren't spared. Superman, the invincible man of tomorrow, has fallen to alien viruses and magical sicknesses that stripped him of his strength. Goku, the strongest warrior of his universe, died—not in battle, but to a heart disease so mundane it could've been cured had time not been bent to save him in another timeline.
In the end, no matter how powerful, how magical, how advanced—the flesh remains the weakest link. The deadliest foes are often the quietest ones. Plagues don't care for courage or destiny—they consume all the same.
Plagues do not discriminate. They do not negotiate. They wait, patient and invisible, until the mighty fall as helplessly as the weak."
Dex remarked as he reviewed memories of his former self.
He thought of his other Path, abilities: [Magic Property - Corrosion. Pain], an aspect of destruction that eroded both body and spirit, and [Elemental Talent - Blood Flame], a visceral, living fire that burned with crimson fury. These were not just weapons; they were seeds—beginning points in a much grander transformation. The evolution system that had gifted him these powers had not simply made him strong. It had opened doors. His destiny was no longer dictated by fate, but by choice.
He was now free to carve his own path through the chaos. To build his own myth. His own legacy.
In his mind, the image of Harry stepping onto Mobis Island was not merely a survivor's tale—it was the start of a chain reaction.
"The moment he touched the soil, he became mine."
That was Dex's gift. The plague was his blessing, and Harry was the first recipient.
A cruel grin stretched across his face.
Harry would be patient zero—the walking core of an airborne, ever-evolving disaster. His body would slowly transform, the plague rooting itself deep inside him. Not hastily, not obviously. But gradually. In time, even Harry's breath would become a weapon. His sweat would carry infection. His blood would be venom. His very existence would spell doom to all around him.
And he wouldn't even know it.
"A portable gas tank," Dex chuckled. "Except one with a broken valve and no safety cap."
Every moment Harry breathed was a moment closer to critical mass.
Dex's satisfaction was short-lived, however. He leaned back in his chair, the weight of the world pressing down on him more than usual. He could feel it again—that suffocating force that stalked his every action. The world itself had begun to resist him. Reality was turning against his presence.
He remembered the campaign alongside James Woz, and the fall of the Principality of Ar. It was James who gave the order, James who rallied the army—but it was Dex's power that turned the tide. And now the world held him responsible.
The cost of power.
Each time he used his plague, each time he bent fate or twisted nature, the world grew heavier around him. Even the air seemed to fight him now. It grew denser, harder to move through. His spells carried greater resistance. His steps, more laborious. Reality had begun to treat him like a virus.
The world's patience was wearing thin.
He could feel its judgment—not in words, but in thunderclouds gathering where there were none, in animals avoiding him with primal terror, in the way even fire seemed reluctant to burn near him. He had become a problem—a foreign entity, too dangerous to be left unchecked.
The next step would be violence. That was always the next step.
When the world could no longer suppress him passively, it would strike directly. With storms. With accidents. With heroes.
Lightning from a clear sky. Meteors. Assassins. Divine interference. It was coming.
Dex laughed to himself, low and bitter.
"The world has never liked demons," he said. "And restless ones like me? I suppose I'm the worst kind."
But he didn't stop. He wouldn't stop.
Even if the world itself declared him an enemy, Dex would push forward.
It can be said that if the two abilities—[Armor Rune - Scarlet] and [Camouflage - Silence]—had not taken effect when they did, Dex would have found himself bombarded by an endless wave of so-called heroes. These individuals, drawn by the world's own will to resist foreign threats, would have tracked him down with relentless fervor. The will of this world, just like many others, acted like an immune system—seeking to eliminate invaders as soon as they took root. Dex, an anomaly from the Abyss, was exactly the kind of infection it sought to purge.
And yet, he had survived.
He hadn't just survived—he had gone completely undetected.
Those two abilities had acted like cloaks draped over his presence, masking him from the prying senses of champions, prophets, mages, or divine instruments scattered across the continent. [Armor Rune - Scarlet] allowed him to not only reinforce his physical defenses but also dampen the perception of his Abyssal energy. Meanwhile, [Camouflage - Silence] operated more subtly—it disrupted magical divinations and confused the spiritual senses that typically locked onto chaotic entities like him.
The result? Silence. Stillness. A rare luxury for his kind.
These parasites who seep into the inner frameworks of other worlds—these so-called invaders, interlopers, demons—are never welcomed. Never left alone. The moment they cross through the veils of reality and find themselves in a new realm, they are immediately hunted, branded enemies of existence itself. The world's guardians, protectors, and chosen champions rise up like white blood cells attacking a virus.
History had made that abundantly clear.
The worlds he had studied—or rather, the inherited memories within him had studied—revealed it plainly. Every demon, regardless of rank or purpose, had been targeted the moment they emerged. Suppressed by the world's own ambient laws, weakened to a fraction of their former strength, then set upon by zealots who believed they carried divine purpose. The outcome was always the same:
Those who could slaughter their way through the waves of defenders—conquering heroes and noble armies—either carved out dark empires or became legends of horror.
Those who failed… died forgotten. Or worse, locked in divine prisons, tortured by holy fire for eternity.
But Dex? He had no intention of following either path. Not yet.
He was smarter than that.
He chose a third option—develop in silence.
His strength grew in secret, hidden away from the divinations of the wise, the songs of seers, and the instincts of beasts. Unlike most demons, he was not obsessed with the devouring of pure souls or the corruption of innocents. He had no taste for theatrics. He did not seek pleasure in torment or savor the aroma of a crying child's fear. To him, a soul was a mere resource—no different than wood, iron, or stone.
He didn't care whether a soul was pure, sinful, blessed, or cursed. The only thing that mattered was how many evolution points it yielded once processed by the system embedded within his being. That cold, pragmatic efficiency made him… unique.
If he had the option, he would rather harvest souls in the Abyss itself. The place was an eternal warzone teeming with monstrous entities, infernal kings, lost demigods, and beasts whose names had long been erased from mortal tongues. Every creature there was either prey or predator—constantly fighting, dying, resurrecting, and evolving.
But to carry out a wide-scale harvest in the Abyss was another matter altogether.
Without a minimum power level equivalent to [Demon Lord], initiating such a campaign would be suicide. One misstep, one roar too loud, and one of the elder predators might notice you—and then you would simply cease to exist. Not killed. Not destroyed. Cease.
And that was if you were lucky.
Even worse, the right to open portals into other dimensions—true invasions—was governed not just by brute force but by the will of the Abyss itself. You had to earn its favor, prove your potential. The Abyss was not a unified realm but a collection of infinite layers, each more twisted than the last, each governed by its own ancient monstrosities.
To become a [Lord] in the Abyss was no small feat.
To even be considered, one must earn the title of [Plane Destroyer]. A demon of such magnitude could snap the minds of mortals with a single glance. They could pluck stars from the sky, mold the moon like clay, and burn oceans into deserts. These beings didn't negotiate with fleets—they erased them. When they invaded, they didn't conquer continents; they devoured entire planes.
And Dex? He was still a long way from that.
But he had something the others didn't.
He possessed the [Evolution System].
It was the ultimate anomaly—a path not based on raw brutality but on refined growth, limitless adaptation, and cumulative supremacy. Through it, he could absorb souls. It allowed him to refine abilities to their core essence, to mutate and twist them into entirely new forms, to combine them like reagents in a grand alchemical formula.
Unlike other demons who had to rely on instinct, rituals, or inherited bloodlines, Dex could evolve his own path—tailored to his will, custom-forged from opportunity and imagination. He could take pieces of forbidden magic, fragments of plague, echoes of emotion, and build powers unseen in any realm.
So while other demons slaughtered blindly, hoping to impress the Abyss with blood-soaked trophies, Dex sharpened himself like a blade in the dark.
He studied this world, analyzed its laws, watched its defenders, learned its languages and myths. He was preparing for the long game—not to conquer this world alone, but to use it as a proving ground, a stepping stone.
The road to becoming a [Demon Lord] wasn't about theatrics. It was about precision. It was about seizing the right moment, unleashing the right plague, corrupting the right node of fate.
For Dex, who possesses the evolution system, although he has other paths to take, this path at the moment is undoubtedly a shortcut that has been proven to be feasible, so he has no reason to give up the idea of invading other dimensions.
On the contrary, he has more diverse means and possesses advantages that other abyssal creatures cannot match on this path, and can go further…
And when that moment came…
The world wouldn't know it was conquered until the rot had already spread beneath its skin.
For now, Dex would remain in the shadows.
But he wouldn't remain small.
He would grow, in silence, until the Abyss itself would be forced to look upon him—not as a pawn, but as a future king.