Kyle told the other two about what he had seen.
"This is impossible!" Star Genesis shouted with surprise and shock.
Sebastian remained quiet as he fell into thought.
"Yeah, but I saw it myself," Kyle said. "I know what I saw."
"Are you sure?" Star Genesis asked. "What if the Beast Core simply transforms into more lightning later?"
"And what if it doesn't?" Sebastian asked, looking at his Elemental. "I did something similar."
Star Genesis instinctively wanted to protest, but she realized that she might be wrong. This was a problem when somebody knew a lot about a topic. If someone knew enough about a field of science that their predictions were 99% accurate, they would bee confident in their knowledge.
However, Star Genesis had already been humbled by Sebastian before. Even though she couldn't imagine how something like this could work, she also admitted that she might simply not know enough.
"Is this similar to how you made your Elemental?" Star Genesis asked.
"Yes, but it's not exactly the same," Sebastian said. "In fact, what I've done is much harder. I had to rewrite my Spirit, which exists in a pletely different plane of existence. Changing my Spirit took far more Energy, and the battle was much longer and more dangerous."
"A Demon's Spirit is inside its Beast Core. Changing it should be much easier. With enough talent and willpower, a Demon could technically change their Beast Core to work with a specific Element."
Sebastian took a deep breath. "I think I know what's going on here."
The other two looked at Sebastian, waiting for his explanation.
"An Elemental with a Beast Core technically has access to an object that acmodates consciousness. If it uses that object, the Elemental could technically develop its own consciousness, giving it a personality, desires, and control. The Beast Core would also increase its power by quite a bit, giving it an edge over other Elementals in battle."
"Technically?" Kyle asked with a raised brow.
"Exactly, technically," Sebastian answered. "The issue is that an Elemental already has a consciousness, albeit a very simple one. The consciousness of a normal beast can't pare to the consciousness of a normal human, but in the same way, the consciousness of a normal Elemental can't pare to the consciousness of a normal beast."
"You can view it as hardware and software. The three different levels of consciousness all have different levels of hardware and software. If you were to give a beast a human brain, would it start thinking like a human?"
"The answer is no. The beast's hardware has been upgraded, but it still runs its own software. It still follows its instincts because that's what most beasts do. You have to start thinking and questioning things to change your software, and that doesn't happen. Therefore, a beast with a human brain would not act any differently from a beast with a normal brain, except that it might bee a bit more creative with its attacks."
"In the same way, the Elemental has received the hardware to run a beast consciousness, but Elementals are even simpler than beasts. It will keep acting like a normal Elemental. In fact, it might not even use the Energy inside its new Beast Core since it's simply not programmed to access it. In short, the addition of a Beast Core will most likely not make a difference."
"But then, why?" Star Genesis asked. "What's the point of all of this? Why consume the prehension Fruits if it doesn't make a difference?"
"I think it barely failed," Sebastian said. "We've seen total failures several times, while this one was just barely a failure. I believe the Demon almost succeeded."
"And a total success would be..." Kyle muttered as he realized something.
Star Genesis took a deep breath as she also realized what this meant.
"A Demon with an Elemental's body," Sebastian confirmed. "An Elemental with the consciousness of a Demon."
An Elemental with the consciousness of a Demon...
Several questions popped into Kyle's mind, but the most prominent one was only one word long.
"Why?" he asked. "What's the point? What's there to be gained? Could the Demon Elemental return to the Main Dimension?"
"No," Sebastian said. "It's impossible. If I were to turn into an Elemental, I could e back to the Main Dimension, but that's because of my Spirit. Beasts and Divine Beasts simply do not have the permission to change Dimensions. The Cosmos does not allow it. As an Elemental, I would still have a human Spirit, which grants me the permission to descend and ascend Dimensions as long as I'm not ascending higher than the Dimension I'm supposed to be in."
"I could swap between the Elemental and Main Dimension as much as I wanted since I would fit into both of them, but a beast can't do that."
"So, they can't attack humans, right?" Kyle asked.
"No, they can't," Sebastian said.
"Could their purpose be to clean up the Elemental Dimension?" Star Genesis asked. "Are they the reason why there's not a single Elemental in the western half of Ayuvar?"
"If that were the case, I would be dead," Sebastian said. "My Elemental has been here for 40,000 years. I would have seen one by now."
"Are they cleaning their own Elemental Dimension? Do they want to manipulate it to fit some sort of plan?" Star Genesis asked.
"I doubt it," Sebastian answered. "The Formation Arrays are taking care of that."
"Do they want to keep the equilibrium so that no new Elemental Energy gets dumped into the world?" Star Genesis asked.
"That's possible, but there are easier and less wasteful ways to do that. I don't think that's the purpose," Sebastian said.
"Then, why? I can't think of a reason," Star Genesis said.
Sebastian sighed. "I'm also not entirely sure. The only thing I know is that a Demon Elemental has huge advantages over normal Elementals. Being an Ascendant will be much easier and faster."
"Can they recreate a body and bee pure Demons again?" Star Genesis asked. "If so, this would be an easy way to create many powerful Demons."
"Theoretically, yes, but practically, no," Sebastian answered. "It would break the Cosmos' rule regarding artificial life. The Beast Core vanished from the Main Dimension, which means the Cosmos declares the beast dead. If a new Beast Core at a higher level suddenly appears, it would be treated like artificial life. It would be destroyed."
Sebastian and Star Genesis fell into thought as they tried to think of a reason. It was more than obvious that the Demons and the plants had been changed by the Overseer to fulfill some kind of purpose.
The amount of knowledge necessary to automate such a delicate and plex process was tremendous. It probably took many years of hard work and trials to create this system. The Overseer wouldn't do that without a purpose.
"I think I know why," Kyle suddenly said.
"Why?" Sebastian asked.
"I told you about my time as Overseer in the Tertiary World, right?" Kyle asked.
Both of them nodded, and then their eyes widened in realization.
"You remember how I was struck by that sword the world had created?" Kyle asked. "What if that defensive mechanism isn't present in the Elemental Dimension? After all, no Element would attack an indestructible wall that's made of something it can't even absorb or use?"
Kyle remembered his time as Overseer in the Tertiary World.
He remembered how desperately he had wanted to escape and how he had tried to break the World Wall.
Back then, ascension had also been impossible for Kyle. After all, he had been under the impression that the Array of Stars would kill him as soon as he left.
'The Overseer might be going through something similar,' Kyle thought. 'They just want to get out, but they can't. After all, they're a beast. The Primary World might be fooled by its tricks and think it's a human, but ascension is not a pushing motion but a pulling one. It's not the lower world pushing someone out but a higher world pulling someone in.'
'Ayuvar might be fooled, but the Supreme World isn't. That's why they can't escape, which only leaves the options of an eternity in Ayuvar or a breakout.'
'They are making an ever-growing army of Demon Elementals to attack the World Wall. Eventually, it will run out of Energy.'
"But that's impossible," Star Genesis said.
'At least, they think it will run out of Energy,' Kyle thought.
"The World Wall refills its lost Energy by pulling in more Energy from the Supreme World," Star Genesis added.
"The World Wall will never run out of Energy!"
"Do you want to tell them?" Kyle asked with a flat tone.
Star Genesis took a deep breath.
"Don't," Kyle added. "Back then, I thought I would be able to break out eventually as long as I could deal with the defensive mechanism, but it was impossible from the beginning. The world would have never run out of Energy."
"If you had told me that back then..."
"I wouldn't know what I would have done."
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Creators' Thoughts: I know, it's a bit slow right now. Give it time. Things will get exciting at chapter 1,000.
The author's patreon. If he gets more than 1000 per month, he will increase the number of words in the chapter.
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