This was clearly a trap.
All of this, from the message pointing towards Seven Stars Village to the clues laid out here, was meant to lure him down here.
But why did Asahi walk into this trap?
Simply put, he was playing along with the enemy's scheme.
It wanted to lure him down here; he also wanted to lure it out.
In this world, apart from it and him, nothing could truly harm either of them. So, the scheme didn't matter. What mattered was that at this very moment, the one hiding in the darkness and the one standing in the light finally clashed.
Even if it hadn't carried out a plot, Asahi would have done something similar, intentionally creating an opening to force its appearance. To put it bluntly: luring the snake out of its hole.
Not far from where Asahi stood, a figure gradually coalesced from the ground. Although it bore a human-like shape, it had no skin, no bones, and no internal organs. It was only a mass of muscular organic matter sculpted into a human form. These muscle fibers were pitch black, occasionally showing the characteristic green veins of the Gastrea Virus.
Before it could fully form, Asahi vanished from the spot, appearing right next to the organic body. His arm lightly swung, and a fist, moving faster than sound, was shot out.
Boom!
The entire body was instantly smashed into a pile of soft, pulpy flesh, scattering into the air. However, Asahi's expression did not relax at all.
"So impatient, Silver King?"
A male voice echoed from behind. Asahi turned his head, seeing that right where he had just been standing, another body had suddenly "sprouted." It was as if it had been there all along; even his senses hadn't picked it up.
But it didn't matter.
He vanished once more, repeating the same punch. And another body turned into scattered flesh pulp.
However, this time Asahi sensed a significant change in the body.
If the first body was shattered by him down to every single cell, this body was only torn into small pieces. While the result sounds similar, the difference between the two was huge.
Immediately, a third body appeared.
"You know, my ability for superior biological transformation allows me to..."
Boom!
"... hide."
Boom!
"... and change my body..."
Boom!
"... into any physical constituent..."
Boom!
"... whatsoever..."
Boom!
After successively destroying six organic bodies, Asahi did not stop, continuing to aim at the seventh body. But this time, this organic body was sturdy and powerful enough to block his punch.
"It seems that Mr. Silver King is quite impatient."
The Prototypical Gastrea, which Asahi named Genesis, looked at its empty forearm, which fully recovered in an instant. This terrifying regenerative capability was undoubtedly Tier V Regeneration.
"And you talk too much."
The alarm in Asahi's heart intensified slightly.
This opponent was not easy to deal with.
"Silver King, don't you have any questions? Haven't people like you come here to clarify mysteries?"
"No questions."
What good was there to question?
There were some matters that asking about was futile, serving no purpose other than satisfying a little curiosity. Compared to those useless matters, killing the mastermind behind the scenes was the priority.
Of course, he wasn't attacking mindlessly. Genesis was testing him, and he was testing it.
As of now, there were three abilities he had tested from Genesis. Each ability individually was not terrifying, but when combined, it was like fighting an entire army of immortals with thick skin and flesh.
Multi-body Separation.
Biological Restructuring.
Memory.
The first two were straightforward, but the third one...
It was Memory Resonance.
This thing not only knew martial arts, but also a mix of countless different martial arts: masters, soldiers, warriors, fighters, boxers... Just in the first clash, Asahi sensed at least a dozen different martial arts styles being unconsciously applied like muscle memory.
"How many memories has this demon... truly swallowed..."
Asahi muttered to himself, then abruptly spoke up.
"Who is that little girl?"
"Rank 1 in the IP rankings."
Genesis said casually, but its answer was questioned by Asahi.
"I think that's not enough."
"Alright, she is the daughter of that woman, and the specimen humanity once called Ardi. She is the first Cursed Child in the world."
With that, everything became clear.
The IP Rank #1 had always been under the control of Genesis. It had used the girl to interfere with the world multiple times, most notably the death of the Stage Five Gastrea, Taurus. And possibly even the death of the Stage Five Gastrea, Virgo. Despite possessing immense power, Genesis still chose to use the hands of others to intervene in the outside world, crushing threats that could potentially jeopardize its existence.
The fact that it could now casually let the girl go was obviously because her usefulness was no longer required; it had another "substitute."
"Are you sure of yourself?"
Asahi slightly curled his lip.
Genesis absorbs human memories, and simultaneously absorbs the negative human trait of arrogance.
Or perhaps this world was simply too weak for it, allowing it to arrogantly trample upon everything.
But...
Because of arrogance, Genesis destroyed humanity, and now, it was also arrogant.
Indeed, Genesis felt it had overestimated the Silver King.
Although the statistical data and analysis were very high, they were at most only at the level of a Stage Five Gastrea. This contradicted some previous data, but arrogance had made Genesis disregard those discrepancies.
Now that the IP Rank #1 had fled, it urgently needed a substitute, and conveniently, to also eliminate a threat.
"Silver King, we are here."
"Beneath your feet, beside you, inside the walls..."
"Within every muscle fiber, blood vessel, nerve, brain..."
"Silver King, we are always here."
Black, fleshy bodies rose up, men, women, the elderly, children... All of them were screaming, like consciousnesses trapped within their bodies, forever unable to find peace.
The demons, non-living, non-dead, merely existing, wandering daily inside purgatory.
The purgatory here was their bodies, their minds. The people who went missing during the Gastrea War never died. Yes, they never died; they were only trapped, tormented by Genesis day after day. If this isn't torment in purgatory, then what is?
Until all personality is warped, all ego collapses, until all that remains is a rotten and fragmented soul. They can only utter a desperate plea for help, the echo of six billion souls.
"God save us..."