Countless Trees of Death littered the Forest but Eridel knew that this wasn’t because of the Abomination itself, but actually that ridiculously large Tree in the centre. In truth, that particular Tree was the result of the Slime Abomination using the Reproduction skill and fusing the new slime with a Tree just like how he did with the Humans to create the Original Undead.

Fortunately, the success rate of a Tree fusing with such a thing was completely abysmal and only 1 managed to survive, becoming the giant Spirit Tree that it was today.

This very tree however, was definitely the cause of the rising amount of the Trees of Death. It’s presence had seeped into the Forest long ago and continuously caused the Trees in the vicinity to either die or mutate.

Most of them died.

But because of this, the Forest had become a haven for the Original Undead that had been released from their mind control.

No longer could their ancestor force them to do what it wanted like puppets using the Bloodline Domination skill, their minds and wills were completely free. Now, they could do whatever they wanted and a lot of them were even able to gain the memories of their lives before their mutation.

But unfortunately, this didn’t cause them to turn over a new leaf in the slightest. They were still cruel and cannibalistic and their memories only made this worse. Now, they had gained the wittiness of those that were once prey and the ambition to gather power that ensured they were never again put in the same situation. Never having to run from predators from day to day and never having to cater to their superiors like SLAVES!

So not only did they increase the amount of times they left the Forest of Death to go and hunt, but now, they even devoured each other! Since they had gained a washed down version of the assimilation skill that the Slime Abomination had from their bloodline, they were able to steal power from those that they ate and sometimes on rare occasions, even skills!

These guys had absolutely no sense of camaraderie and would even devour their own ancestor if they could, so it was only natural that they would frequently devour each other for more power whenever they could.

Eventually, only 37 Original Undead were left ‘alive’. Well, technically there were 38 if you included the giant Tree of Death but it’s better to consider it in a class of its own. So yeah, there were 37 Original Undead left now, but each and every one of them were very, very powerful.

Having survived till now they had all gone through all kinds of life and death situations and they gained power from every win. They were also very cunning and highly intelligent, at this point they knew that to kill each other now would be too difficult, a fight between them would be extremely dangerous and would leave the winner on his last legs, free for someone else to take all the benefits.

They obviously didn’t want that so they had decided to establish a truce, forming an alliance or to be more accurate a council. Each of them had hordes of undead under their control by now and they could be said to be the ultimate leaders of all the Undead on the Continent.

It was quite similar to the Demon Kings and the Monsters on the South Continent but Eridel knew that if there was a confrontation between the 2 forces, the Monsters would be finished.

Apart from Asura the Emperor of Monsters himself, the 37 Original Undead Lords were much stronger than the 87 Demon Kings. And on top of that, the Original Undead were… well, undead. Very hard to kill.

With these kinds of beings along with the giant Tree of Death and the Abomination of The North himself, it was safe to say that their territory would become a Sacred Land very, very quickly.

But Eridel found it somewhat of a struggle to address something like THAT as a ‘Sacred’ Land.

‘If you asked me, it’s more of a Cursed Land~’ Eridel chuckled at his little joke before turning serious again. He had a job to complete and he was on a clock. Thankfully, the few things that he wanted to implement were either nothing too crazy or he had already started them a while ago.

His [Manifestations of 7 Deadly Sins] project for example…He had been working on this project ever since he grasped the concept of Anomalies and it was going to be wild.

His [4 Horsemen Of The Apocalypse] project was also a work in progress. Nothing much needed to be said about this, he was planning on invading other Worlds. Although Eridel had been content with his World, his position was still fallible and he wanted, no, NEEDED more power. He wouldn’t be able to hide for very long and sooner or later, his Planet would be revealed to the galaxy.

‘Hopefully, I’ll be ready by then.’

If only he knew.

Although the other projects were cool, Eridel was currently excited about another one that would cause ground-breaking changes that would shoot his World light-years ahead of others. The others were still going to take a bit more time but this one wouldn’t and Eridel was absolutely ecstatic.

This project was none other than the [Soul Mates] project.

The Soul Mates project was exactly what it sounded like, 2 individuals with such a deep chemistry that it was as if they were made for each other. But Eridel’s plan had much more layers to it than that.

First of all, this almost completely removed the issue of romantic and sexual relationships on his Planet. In some other Worlds, the relationships between Man and Woman were almost like a fight of who can manipulate who or who could best appease their instincts in the relationship. Would it be the Woman who could find the best Man that she most admires and loves and ‘confine’ him into a monogamous relationship. Or the Man who could find the most supportive and lovely Woman who would be completely loyal to him whilst at the same time letting him smash hoes on the side.

There were deeper biological reasons as for why the 2 genders had such desires but there was no need to go into that.

Because of the 2 contradicting desires, a lot of relationships crumbles and in the worst case scenario, a child is involved.

When Husbands and Wives fought all the time, unattended Children raised as degenerates and the desire for love was in such shambles; One's hope in life itself tended to collapse over time.

A man’s age-old instinct was to protect his Woman or Women along with his children whilst it was a Woman’s age-old instinct to submit to the most powerful Man that was willing to impregnate them and then raise the resulting Children to adulthood. Most people knew it but they refused to acknowledge it when the indoctrination of society preached otherwise.

But the result was a terrifying fate that most wouldn’t expect.

As a broken King once said: ‘In a World without love, death means NOTHING.’

But that was actually the 2nd most important reason for Eridel’s Soul Mate Project.