Chapter 448 What is a Demon?

The woman paused for two seconds.

Then she finally understood Ling Mo’s meaning, her expression immediately darkened: “You have betrayed me too?”

And seemingly to ensure she wouldn’t have other thoughts, Ling Mo conjured up another collar, tossed it in the distance, and then—

BOOOM!

The massive explosion instantly blasted a big pit into the ground where it landed—this was Ling Mo’s specially prepared enhanced bomb collar for these demons. The explosion radius might not be large, but the intensity and instantaneous power were definitely enough to kill any demon, unless the other party had already transcended physical existence.

But clearly, this woman did not possess such strength yet.

From her earlier inability to resist as the demons approached step by step, it was evident that all her strength was basically in those limbs she extended. To be specific, it was in the arms on those limbs.

So as long as she could be prevented from extending those arms, she would be completely safe.

Maybe she couldn’t even beat a regular person.

The woman naturally sensed the power of that explosion and seemed to be certain that if the collar around her neck exploded, she would absolutely not survive. Her expression darkened even further, and she fought again to remove the thing from her neck—but once the collar was put on, it automatically locked in place. To safely remove it, there was only one possibility: Ling Mo had to actively dissipate it. For a less safe removal, there was the explosion option.

Just like that thing the canned meat was wearing around its neck, this also counted as Ling Mo exercising himself—he seldom kept anything materialized for long periods or permanently since the consumption would only increase. This could also be considered a form of endurance training.

At least just having two bomb collars wasn’t much of a problem for him.

“Stop wasting your efforts; this thing will be on your neck for life,” Ling Mo said indifferently. “The king should know that after becoming a captive, there are two choices, right? Either die fighting or bow in submission. But as the former General of the State, let me remind you: If you choose to die fighting, it will likely result in your complete annihilation but won’t affect us at all. As someone who once ruled an entire city-state, dying without any value would be quite a pity.”

The woman clenched her teeth, still somewhat confused: “Why?! Why betray me?! We could take back this city-state! Just give me a little time! I trusted you so much! Why are you doing this?!”

“Because we’re not demons,” Ling Mo shrugged. “Sorry, we are humans.”

At this moment, there was an inexplicable thrill akin to a police undercover reveal.

The woman paused, more puzzled: “So what? Am I not human?”

“…No, you are a demon.”

“What is a demon?”

“…”

At this instant, Ling Mo and Xia Xinyan suddenly realized a problem.

They had overlooked the woman’s level of understanding.

It’s like trying to discuss human nature and racial justice with a toddler who just learned to speak. It would definitely be as effective as playing music to a cow since the child wouldn’t understand anything—likely the only thing better than this demon would be that it could vaguely understand it was human.

But this demon…had no idea what a demon is.

Because its learning targets were all human creations, all centered around humans. Moreover, at least before this game was released, there was no concept of “demon” that had any real significance in this world.

Thus, the atmosphere that was originally supposed to be tense and confrontational magically calmed down—because Ling Mo spent nearly ten minutes explaining to the woman what humans are and what demons are.

The woman was greatly shocked: “Are you saying that the box I saw was made by humans? Are there more of those things in human city-states?”

“Yes, and there are as many as you want.” Ling Mo nodded.

“Then I’m willing to be your captive, but with one condition: I want those boxes; I want to see more things related to humans,” the woman said seriously. “And even as a captive, I should still receive the treatment of a soldier.”

Ling Mo: “…”

Suddenly, he found this far simpler than he imagined.

Since the terms were agreed upon so pleasantly, they didn’t dawdle. Ling Mo quickly summoned a helicopter and set off for home with the woman—this flying vehicle astounded her deeply. After hearing Ling Mo say that this too was human technology, her interest in humans grew even stronger.

It seemed that this woman had quite a strong thirst for knowledge, even surpassing the humiliation of becoming a captive.

Of course, the main reason was that Ling Mo and the others did not plan to treat the woman as a captive in the traditional sense—like imprisoning and torturing her. If they did that, she would probably really choose to fight them to the death. There was no need for that; they wanted to obtain information about demons from her. If they could make her a member of humanity, her utility would undoubtedly increase significantly.

But even though she seemed easy to talk to, they couldn’t fully trust her—after all, her lethal capabilities were much greater than that of the canned meat. Therefore, on the way back, Xia Xinyan chatted with her the entire time, partly to keep an eye on her and partly to mend their relationship.

And since she had already become one of them, there was no need to keep calling her “woman.” But if they called her “Guan Yu,” it would seem very odd no matter how they looked at it. So Xia Xinyan gave her a new name—“Guan Ling.” The two characters “Ling” and “Yu” were similar in meaning, and the name sounded a bit more feminine, aligning better with her appearance. After a few roundabout words, the woman agreed.

Of course, since she looked like a human and already had her own name while also becoming one of them, Xia Xinyan figured there was no real problem treating her as a human, just like with Xiao Bai—though not entirely like a human, it was more like a member of an early experimental district within a friendly human-demon alliance.

If they were indeed going to try to coexist peacefully, they couldn’t keep treating her as an obvious outlier. Just look at the canned meat; it was already adapting better to the human world—okay, that was mainly because it suddenly converted to a new belief. But the demon’s nature wasn’t affected, so Guan Ling probably wouldn’t be too different.

Guan Ling was quite cooperative. Upon hearing they would treat her with an alliance’s attitude, her emotions calmed down. Clearly, she was more interested in the human world than the humiliation of being a captive—only that there was obviously some misconception based on her watching too many Three Kingdoms dramas, leading her to believe the human world was still at an ancient level.

So when they returned to Chicks Stronghold, she was stunned.