Chapter 165 Legacy

Hasse squatted down beside Amtur’s last words in Ammtula, gently stroking the carved indentations with his hand, a faint light floating on his fingertips. After identifying it through the unique method of the demon hunters, he confirmed that the text did indeed carry Ammtula’s will, and was not forged by someone.

The bald, dark-skinned demon hunter, resembling an African, walked over at this moment. He stopped with a serious expression after noticing Ammtula’s body: "Indeed, Elder Ammtula also died here..."

"Tutanin," Hasse stood up and nodded slightly to the black-skinned demon hunter, "Bring out those letters."

Tutanin was taken aback: "Here?"

"Right here," Hasse said lightly, "Countess Ansessta is a respectable elder who has taken the initiative to show sincerity. We should also respond accordingly."

Tutanin didn't say anything more. He walked away quickly and soon returned with a small box that looked quite important. Hasse placed the box on the only long table nearby that was still relatively intact. He casually swept the clutter off the table, took out many letters and notes from the box, and spread them out in front of Vivian.

"This is..." Vivian picked up a few pieces of paper and examined them, "Amtula's diary?"

"We found the clues from these things. Bai Huo should have mentioned it to you," Hasse nodded gently, "These are the documents and diaries left by Ammtula and two other elders before their deaths, including their research on... the innate antagonism phenomenon."

Vivian and Hao Ren immediately began to examine the documents with great importance. The demon hunters had already sorted these documents, not only marking the order by date but also indicating who wrote each of them. Hao Ren glanced through them and found that the elder Ammtula's emphasis on and depth of research into the innate antagonism phenomenon far exceeded his previous imagination. In these documents, Ammtula described in detail the "innate antagonism" between the different races and the demon hunters' "hunting instinct" towards the different races, and clearly recognized that these two phenomena were actually the same thing. He summarized and sorted from historical data every supernatural race that had ever existed from ancient times to the present and other information related to "innate antagonism," including the degree of antagonism between the various races, the distribution of each race, the degree of martial strength, the historical start and end points of each race, and their respective forms of civilization. He divided "innate antagonism" into ten levels according to his own standards and roughly described the average impact of the "innate antagonism" phenomenon on various races from ten thousand years ago to the present in the form of a chart.

In his chart, the initial influence of the innate antagonism phenomenon was unbelievably high, almost completely replacing the rational part of each race, being listed as "beyond the level of thinking," while around the end of the mythological era, the influence of the innate antagonism phenomenon on various races dropped to the level of "rationally controllable," and in modern times, there was a significant decline, quickly falling to the level of "ordinary hostility that can be controlled at any time." At the very end of the table, the curve fell directly to almost zero at an alarming rate, and Ammtula wrote a sentence at the end of the curve: "Is it about to disappear?"

These materials also included the research materials and correspondence of the other two demon hunter elders, but Ammtula's left behind nearly 80% of all the materials. Hao Ren was increasingly surprised as he looked at these things. He realized that these achievements were definitely not recent: only a few months had passed since the innate antagonism phenomenon began to fade in the younger generation of the various races, and Ammtula had obviously begun to study these things long before that.

Vivian found a letter in which Ammtula mentioned some of his research results to a friend: "...I discovered long ago that the differences between the various supernatural races on Earth are so great, not only culturally, but they (including us) have huge differences from physiological structure to soul. No one with a normal mind would believe that these species were born on the same planet under natural circumstances... I checked the books that were confiscated, and it is obvious that some smart people in other races also realized this."

"...The different races, and the demon hunters, all these races undoubtedly come from outside this planet, and not from the same planet outside this planet, but from many planets. We each have different origins, there is no doubt about it..."

In another letter, Ammtula mentioned this topic again: "...My friend, shouldn't we doubt it? We have been hunting other races for thousands of years, and those races are also a mess of infighting, but why hasn't anyone ever wondered? Just as you and I agree, every supernatural race should come from a different place, we have different physiological structures, different forms of power, different cultural traditions, and even different souls. Under normal circumstances, races with such large differences have almost no chance of contact, just like fish in the deep sea and monkeys on high mountains have no intersection, let alone any hatred. But we are thrown on the same planet by some force, to war for war. Whenever I think of this, I feel very uneasy..."

"We are driven by something that is not our own will. It lurks in the depths of your and my souls. Yes, we are like crickets and fighting cocks in a cage, staring at the 'enemy' in front of us, so that no one is curious about the cage around them, and no one considers how we were sent into this cage. And now, this force that drives us is gradually weakening. I am increasingly worried about this. I am afraid this is an even worse sign: if there is really an audience outside the 'cage', then he is probably losing interest in the fighting performance."

Most of Ammtula's letters were discussing this aspect of the issue with friends, and his views were mainly three: the supernatural races on Earth all came from various different "outer realms"; the supernatural races were collected from all over the universe and placed on Earth for continuous fighting; the innate antagonism phenomenon is a shackle and controller, and its role is to ensure the continuous fighting of various supernatural races.

And these three points can be summarized into one, that is: all this is a conspiracy.

Amtula was limited by his perspective on Earth and naturally could not draw the correct conclusions, but his conspiracy theory was still a great improvement compared to other demon hunters and races who had never doubted it, at least he clearly realized that the demon hunters' "hunting instinct" had nothing to do with justice and mission, but was an extremely suspicious thing from a third party.

But these ideas of his were undoubtedly a heretical behavior among the demon hunters.

"I didn't expect a demon hunter to think of these..." Vivian couldn't help but mutter to herself, and Hasse nodded lightly when he heard this: "Amtula is the strangest of the elders. Many of his ideas, in our opinion, can even be called... heresy. The first half of his life was the most valiant warrior, fanatically immersed in the hunting of the different races, but the second half of his life suddenly began to be fascinated by these theories."

Vivian raised a letter and shook it: "Isn't he afraid of being tied to firewood and roasted by your council of elders for studying these things?"

Hasse shook his head: "His research did not reduce his position in the demon hunter organization, because his 'results' have always been the best. He is still a powerful hunter, just... his ideas are a bit strange."

Vivian's lips curled slightly: "He clearly realized that something was wrong, but he still didn't stop fighting."

Hasse had no response to this.

Hao Ren wanted to hear what the demon hunter in front of him thought about these "heretical theories": "Hasse, what do you think of his research?"

Unexpectedly, Hasse nodded after a brief silence: "It makes sense."

Vivian raised her eyebrows: "I thought you would angrily scold him."

"Elder Ammtula's theories are not a secret, and do you think demon hunters are really just battle maniacs who only know how to show off their strength?" Hasse had a smile that was not a smile on his face, "We study and research more diligently than most different races. But Ammtula's theories cannot change anything. The hunting instinct has a greater impact on us than you think, and the war situation that has continued from the mythological era to the present cannot be reversed by such a theory. At least that's the case to this day."

Hao Ren did not comment on this. He just glanced at the documents, and a line of words jumped into his eyes:

"...In summary, our hunting instinct is not a natural product that should exist in our souls. It is implanted by someone and is evidence of artificial manipulation, perhaps with a purpose..."

For some reason, Hao Ren thought of what Ammtula said before his death: "They were right, we were wrong."