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Chapter 683 - Dusk Horizon
🕑 Added 2025-08-26 08:31:42 +0000 UTCAfter returning to the 9th floor, I send a scan through the area after seeing the base is gone from the place where I appear. My scan finds the mark, the kind we developed locates only markers we have made. It has a huge range, uses little mana, and since it looks only for these markers, it is hard to notice as well.
Doing that, I take a few steps and find a small pile of rocks against a tree. Buried under it is a small sheath of metal with carved words on it.
“We had to move again because of Skippy. Be careful, he might be in the area. We are temporarily in the Dusk Horizon village.”
Right away, the noises of the jungle sound more dangerous. It feels like Skippy could be hiding behind any of the trees.
And I really don't feel like meeting Skippy.
I reduce my mana signature even further and start moving just by walking toward the demon village. I know it will take me a few hours to get there, but I do not hurry. After weeks of constant grind in Beyond, I take it as an opportunity to rest. But even so, I do not stop and start examining my mind techniques.
As funny as the thing with Mapthaniel is, it also makes me cautious. Even now, I think my mind is the most important part of me, so not fully understanding parts of it annoys me and could be dangerous.
I have a theory, though. I have long known that powerful active skills gradually change your body. Not to the extent of passives, at least not at the low level mine are. I have a reason to suspect these changes active skills bring could be greater at higher levels, especially as some take years to level up just once, giving the skill enough time.
So I wonder. Could my low constitution and my powerful skills be doing that already, if only slightly? I know they do it, but maybe to a greater extent than I thought.
If so, should I stop raising my constitution to allow it to happen at a faster pace?
I suspect it could be [Manifestation] or [Focus] that causes my split minds to behave this way, especially the ones I keep running for longer periods. I still do not think it is anything close to what happened with Duplicaniel, and I do not think it will ever reach that level. It is probably just my mind evolving, maybe something you need to go through. But that does not mean there is no chance for it to go terribly wrong. Faora was a good example, with pieces of herself trapped and tortured in her Mind Palace.
Maybe 9th floor Nathaniel will finally be the first to beat the living legend, the 3rd floor Nathaniel. Damn, that guy was cool. I wish to be like him one day.
Do you agree, Mapthaniel?
There is no answer. Thankfully.
For now.
I do not know what the hell is happening anymore.
***
The tribe we are staying with is called the Dusk Horizon, as is their village. Tess would probably know why, but I do not. I did not bother asking.
The demons stay mostly on the six trees that are near each other, often connected by powerful branches. The place is relatively safe thanks to the fact that the main tree, the one the others grow around, eats monsters.
If anything bigger than a human-sized snack comes close, it opens its single huge eye on the trunk, and crazy shit happens. I have not seen it in person, but Dennis and Aaron swear it is super metal.
Otherwise, the flesh-eating tree does not attack, likely because the Dusk Horizon tribe feeds it. I would not be surprised if it demanded sacrifices, but they just lure in monsters, which started avoiding the area, cutting out the source of protein for the tree.
I do not know the exact level of the tree, but it shows as three question marks, so at least it is below 450, though probably not by much.
It does not care when demons climb, sleep, eat, or do other things all over it, and it needs to be seriously damaged before it reacts. It also does not like fire, not at all. Dusk Horizon members mostly have gravitational demon hearts, so that works for them. Similarly to Malika, they have strong bodies and move in a way not dissimilar to Min-Jae.
Even though Min-Jae is not aggressive enough for their liking, they probably like him the most out of group 4. They seem to respect and challenge Lily the most, but spit on the ground when Tess walks around. They really do not like lightning primordial energy users.
I think Tess beats the crap out of one or two demons per day, but never gives in to the urge to push further, so they pick on her, exploiting her kind heart. Now that I think of it, she might do it on purpose and use them as training. How scary.
Meanwhile, on my first visit here, I almost killed ten of them. This tribe is shameless as hell. I expected one-on-one challenges, but after I said, “Let’s make it quick, just attack all at once,” they did it, and came at me as a group of ten.
I mean, I know I said it, but I did not expect them to actually do it. I guess it is the result of growing up in a tight knit tribe, and behaving slightly differently than the demons I met so far. As I noticed over time, they even take things you would not expect seriously. So if you tell them to attack all at once, they think you are either powerful enough and it is okay, or you are dumb and deserve to be fed to their tree.
In the area, I can already join the web of Ley Lines. It is a secret cupola-like construct that Sophie and I set in multiple places that could serve as defensive zones.
[Ley Line] is used to create the base, and everyone from group 4 gets a mark that allows them to connect to it. They can then use some of the functions. My skill makes the construct long lasting, with some nodes filled with my mana every time I leave. We also modified it so Sophie or the twins can charge and connect to it as well.
Soon, Min-Jae might be able to do it, and I saw how much that annoys the twins. This is something they are good at, and Min-Jae is catching up to them. I think it will only make them push further, so it is a good thing.
The web we made is heavily inspired by the Veil from the 5th floor and multiple defensive arrays, including the Academy one. So far, no demon has noticed it, or they just ignore it. Either option could be true.
Not far from the main tree, I brace myself and take a few deep breaths.
As almost every time, a bunch of demon kids come rushing in while screaming. They all have white hair, red eyes, and thick, short horns. They are tall and slim, leaping from lower branches or hovering down as if they can levitate.
“Two-hearted one!” one of them shouts.
“Human demon!”
“Nya!”
“Mana Daddy!”
“Who the fuck said that!” I look around.
Giggles echo, and a bunch of demon kids aged three to twelve laugh as they circle me. A few try to sneak in some punches, but I just absorb the impact.
“You were away for a long time!” A five-year-old girl jumps on my back and climbs higher. As always, when she does, she goes through my hair, searching for horns, still refusing to believe I am not a demon who dyes his hair.
The smallest one, a three-year-old boy, clings to my leg and bites me right above the knee, leaving drool everywhere.
That is new.
I start walking with the girl on my back and the boy clinging to my leg, while the others move along with us.
“I went to train,” I answer. As always, I am a bit curious how much the system truly influences the natives when an attendee leaves for Beyond. Some of my excuses no normal person would believe, but when it is connected to Beyond, the system seems to make them accept it more easily.
“Did ya, kiw somewan stronk?” The boy stops biting my leg and looks up. His red eyes look huge.
“A few strong monsters,” I nod.
He giggles happily and starts biting me again.
“Still no horns,” the girl sighs, disappointed, and taps my head multiple times.
“He told you many times he is not a demon!” one of the older girls shouts at the little one.
“My mom said he must be born with hidden horns, and my auntie said she will one day try to check if he is not hiding it in his pants!” the girl on my back insists, stubborn as ever. She shakes my head left and right while digging through my hair again. “Maybe they're just late to come out.”
“They are not coming out,” I answer.
An older boy snorts. He is probably around twelve, his horns already longer than the rest. “It does not matter if he has none. He fought ten of my uncles, and they lost.”
The hell? Was it his entire family that grouped up on me? What a vile bloodline. I should have known from how he was punching harder than the others.
The group goes silent for a moment. Then the little one, still chewing on my leg, pipes up through a mouth full of cloth. “He tastes like metal.”
Some of the older kids burst out laughing so hard that a few nearly fall from the branches. The girl on my back tugs harder, frustrated. “No, he is hiding them! I will find them!”
At the same time, the three-year-old finally lets go of my leg, leaving spit everywhere. He grins up at me, red eyes glowing faintly in the shade. “Can I have your horns when they grow?”
“They will not grow,” I answer, shaking my head.
“Yes, they will!” the girl insists, and now two more kids start digging through my hair while others shout bets about when the horns will appear.
The one from the vile family smirks. “If they do come out, I get to be first to fight you to the death.”
The others cheer at that, voices overlapping as if it is the most natural thing in the world. Fight to the death, laugh about it, then run back to play.
“Sure,” I say flatly. “If I ever grow horns, you can line up behind the rest of your family.”
The girl on my back taps my head again. “See? He admits he has horns.”
“I did not,” I mutter, but no one listens.
Another kid shouts, “When they grow, we will all fight you!”
Great. I can already see them setting up a little death tournament the second I sneeze wrong.
The drool monster at my leg looks up, still chewing on my pants. “If he dies, can I keep his bones?”
I sigh and kick my leg with enough force for the drool monster to lose his grip and fly into the air. While he is up there, I use [Redistribution] to freeze him in place. Before his movement fully halts, his face twists into a wide, happy grin.
The girl on my back moves and tries to dig my eyes out with her hands. She always does that.
I freeze her movement as well and take a step forward, leaving her body hanging in the air in the position she had been clinging to me.
The remaining kids charge at me all at once. Someone kicks at my crotch, someone else pulls out a dagger, and the vile one tries to punch me with gravitational energy surrounding his fist.
All of them freeze in the air.
It looks like some twisted painting. A bunch of white-haired, red-eyed kids with horns, attacking with wide smiles on their faces.
Knowing she hates it, I step toward the girl who was searching through my hair and start poking her tiny horns. I tap them multiple times. From the ground, I pull a bunch of grass and put it on her hair. Noticing her mouth is slightly open, I shove a few flowers inside. I finish by moving her hair into her eyes so she cannot see anything.
I walk between the floating kids, hands in my pockets.
The drool monster gets his nose tapped, then I wipe the spit from my pants onto his forehead in an awkward motion while lifting my knee high into the air. For good measure, I press a patch of grass between his teeth so he looks like he tried to snack on the lawn.
The dagger kid gets a quick poke in the ribs. Then another. Then another. I keep going until I’m satisfied he’ll feel it the second he unfreezes.
One of the older girls has her mouth slightly open. I drop a tiny pebble inside. Not big enough to choke her, just enough to make her spit it out in disgust later.
I do similar things to all of them, and finally, I step back, satisfied. I am not even sorry. Not in the slightest.
A cackle escapes my mouth, and I secretly use invisible near-threads of mana to tie their shoes together, weaving them just wide enough so they can wobble. I set it to dissolve after one hour. After that, I release my skill and teleport away.
I stop by where the leader of this tribe is. An old demon man with his name showing three question marks. I walk towards where he usually is, in a house made of wood, built at the top of the man eating tree.
I’m sure he sensed my presence as soon as I approached the village. There, I greet him with a simple nod, but respectfully.
After looking at me for a moment, he nods back, and I leave, teleporting into our temporary base. As scheduled, everyone is here, sitting around the table with some snacks on it.
“Hey,” I greet, and get multiple greetings back.
(Food!) Biscuit sounds the most excited out of all, and he jumps onto my lap the moment I sit down. He expands in size until he is as big as a Labrador and snuggles against my whole body.
I wait until he settles, then look from behind him at the others. All are a bit quiet, as if waiting for someone else to start first.
Tess takes that role. “Before we have our meeting, I think we should share the information Sophie was able to gain.”
Her tone sharpens my interest, and I glance at Sophie, who gives me a strange smile.
And Tess continues, “It seems that our first Beyonder will be participating in the 3rd tournament.”
***
Comments
Memelord Steambath
We still havent seen what mana constitution has done to his body
TYRELL GRAY
Not really, to use focus on his black mana,nath had the healing field around him. So that’s why he tried to teach it to her, she can heal whatever damage focus/ compression cause to her brain
Malestan
Hardly possible to be more normal that Nat. This guy is already the *Manifestation* of the word ^^ Seriously tho, the first beyonder might be broken OP as a base line, like Ruler Candidate worth before leveling up... But nobody has as much potential as Nat. Even the Ancient Monster, the Absolute Lissliss said that she's terrified of Nathaniel pugnacity toward adversity
Johnny
Damn Nat has to continue his tourney W streak uh oh
Johnny
Wait why would the twins be more talented? Those are all one word
13L00D13ANE
Also.. is no one else going to mention/comment on the thirsty auntie demoness? No? Ok, cool.
13L00D13ANE
Except she would react the same way to 'Nya' as Nat did to 'Mana Daddy' XD
13L00D13ANE
Oh no i think its still a few months away at the soonest. I feel like 3-5 at least
13L00D13ANE
The 'who the fuck said that!' sounded like a 'Full Metal Jacket' quote in my head. R. Lee Ermey lives in my head rent-free
Moon Winchester
Yay, finally we can learn about the first beyond. Also, I have a little theory. I believe everybody who is chosen for hell difficulty guaranteed has one skill, which is only one word. Or both of their skills is one word. Since we learned from the warden of parallax eyes that the scariest skills are one word skills because the less definition Behind, the broader the ability. Which can be seen with the Nate mana of manipulation and Sophie’s manipulation. Nate’s one word ability was focus, Lilly’s is extinguish, Tess is telekinesis, Minje’s is also telekinesis, Sophie is manipulation, her sister who I’m blanking on the name somehow is empathy, biscuit is devour, Aaron and Dennis is connection and haste which oddly shows that they would be more talented than everyone else because of both their skills being one word. Mayas is concentration. Hadwin was hardening. And then everyone else has like a two word skill. Man, a manipulation, Farsight, I’m blanking on everyone else’s. So I believe to become eligible for hell difficulty tutorial you needed a one word, skill, or both of your skills being one word. So then this makes me ask the question for the first to be. What criteria did he fit to become the first. My only guess is he somehow entered the tutorial with three skills. Or one of his skills is literally just called absolute. This forced earth pairing to begin or it’s a Isaka scenario where he fell through a rift in space went to that other world had an Easter Journi came back to earth, but because his power level was unique, he created a connection to the system, starting the tutorial, putting him in beyond and commencing the pairing because he would have beef with the other world‘s absolute . And because his own abilities are so definitive compared to earth, he was subconsciously selected as earth’s absolute.
Jim Johnson
More Bisquit chapters? Yes please.
Anthony Duenas
I feel like [Manifestation] should be able to help with that. However he still doesn't know what changes his stats and traits will make to his body ahead of time, so he would still need to constantly upgrade and rebalance himself as he grows stronger.
zoarian
Nat: "I think low constitution is causing active skills to change my body in unexpected ways." Also Nat: "Should I maybe lower my constitution?" Peak
Thisguy
Ok so theory: I was thinking that black mana has ties to focus, as if you remember from way back when he first got it on floor 3, Nat said he was trying to put his skill (Focus) into his mana to make it compress further. What further reinforced that is the idea that Maya seems good at compression as well, and she has focus too. But Nat did say he wants to teach it to lily… so if she learns it that theory goes out the window
Anthony Duenas
I think he's freezing the kinetic energy the pokes make as he pokes them so the energy is already inside the kid, and it finishes traveling through when he lets go
Poutine Au Syrop d'érable
Aren't kinetically frozen people still able to think and feel? The kid won't feel it all the second they unfreeze. Its not a time freeze. Gotta be consistent. Unless you make it so that kidnetic freezing with a buge power diff also freeze neurons.
Kenny
I believe it was said the third tournament is like a mini pairing where Earth will face against another tutorial. Not saying they won't clash though.
William Johnson
First beyonder hype! Possibly the only guy more normal than Nate!
Manther
Well, it seems like Sophie really was the first to meet Juan (out of the people we know). They're both in Frontier, so it makes sense
tishane Imperial MageKiller
This is QA about Manifest [Manifestation] if nat fully upgrades his Body Mods and traits right couldn't he use the concept of [Manifestation] to make his body be that way like you know? Everyone gets what im saying I mean if he puts his mana behind it could he possibly make it all permanent and fully working like this is the true manifestation of his real body?
V
Mana Daddy! *snorts* TFTC.
Bobbs
It's about to go down!!!!
M Schweibold
1st beyonder is Elfthaniel
TBONEMAN
Yes. He is very normal compared to mapthaniel. That guy is a weirdo.
TBONEMAN
I didnt realize the time skip brought us to the tournament
Nerø
Wasn't it implied that the first beyonder deliberately declined to participate in the previous tournaments?
Lee Joseph Rosales
Earths Absolute is about to be revealed!!
anonymous patreon
happy bday!
im Panda
No, Vega would beat them all up and establish the pecking order as #1 minion. Other minions has always been allowed, as long as she's number 1
im Panda
There's 1 every year during the tutorial. These guys joined this floor right after the 2nd tournament ended iirc so it'll be when this floor is about to end
Fdrugc
Maybe it's means Nat as the group's first beyonder
im Panda
Today is my birthday, I accept and claim this chapter as my gift
Sergei Hartwig
Nat vs. First beyonder in 3rd Tounament, damn im Hyped cant wait. Nice one Cermin!
Borbino the great
HD?
Borbino the great
Nat is definitely going insane
Krzychu0304
The "that creepy-murderous maniacal-little-shit-ferret-looking-spawn-of-the-devil" one of Biscuit's animal friends.
Augustus
Food!
Sir Supports Alot
How long till the next tournament? Can't remember
Fdrugc
Nat is such a normal person
Liam Zay
Isn't the next tournament more cooperative and against another world?
Zaim İpek
I wonder how it's possible for him to participate without access to the tutorial system. Maybe the third tournament is mandatory and doesn't give an option to decline. That seems like the only way. I would love to see a spar between Biscuit and Beyond boy. Right now it's very unclear who is Earth's strongest. We need a proper match to determine who is truly. . . top dog. *Badum psh*
Oaktree
To bad Myrra wasn’t here feel like she would have approved of messing with the kids.
Val the mysterious Jedi
Demons in HD are my favorite in any litrpg so far, honestly HD is one of the best I read out of the mountain of luke warm books
Adrian Rake
Nat has a good heart for kids. Surprising weakness for the future Absolute System Candidate 😉
Dandaveeto
Thanks for the cliffhanger
Oaktree
Well if the information is true nat might actually have a challenge during the third tournament. Seeing how aside from vic no one can give him a challenge.
Oaktree
Did i miss something who the heck is skippy?
Javen
Vega would absolutely burst a vein if she saw these demon brats playing with her master this way.
Andrew
Thank you!
frankie doerr
Woo hoo commence the wild theories again can we also get an updated stat cheat I want to know where we are at in the tutorial please and thanks
JTP
Nat bullying the kids is just peak fiction.
vEnviouz
TFTC!!!
BlackRazaras
Thanks for the chapter
Abel Stavrow
After Nat exchanges nods with the tribe leader, you may want to wait till tomorrow to read the rest of the chapter... it's a damn tease of a cliffhanger.
Sondadir
Thanks for the chapter!
Andrey Barragan
Thanks for the chapter
