When the first human and the first beast's forces retreated, the human ruler took a moment to get his breathing straight before he headed down towards the capital. He wasn't stupid enough to ignore the fact that the retreat had started after the first beast had visited something below the capital.
Although it could usually hide from him, the human ruler used various methods to find the location of the first monster's cave.
When he entered, he found it much bigger than when the first beast had found it.
In addition, there was a non human being here. A mass of tentacles lay in the bottom of the cave, taking up a large amount of space.
The human ruler was shocked beyond words. This had been living beneath the human capital the entire time?
"You… Come…" A voice said. It did not sound male or female. It didn't even sound human, but like the scratching of metal against metal.
The human ruler stepped forward.
"Why are you here?" The human ruler said.
"To feed. But… I can also… protect."
"You can scare off the first human and the first beast?" The human ruler asked.
"Yes. As long as I… am here, the human…. realm is safe. But it comes… at a price." The first monster said.
"Feeding. On humans?" The human ruler asked.
"It doesn't have… to be humans. It can be… anything… as long as it is… alive and… strong enough." The first monster said.
The human ruler fell deep into thought.
"You… don't have a… choice. Can you… afford to make another… enemy?" The first monster asked.
"No, I cannot. Yet I cannot simply allow innocent humans to die. How about this? Give me a quota, and I will bring it to you in the form of humans or other beings. In return, you leave innocent humans alone and protect us from invaders." The human ruler said after a while.
"Deal. Leave your… offerings at my door. Do not… enter my cave… again." The first monster said.
The human ruler nodded and soon left.
The first monster transformed back into his human form and left the cave.
While he had made an agreement, he would not strictly follow it. The quota would help, but there were plenty of humans to devour. Luckily for humanity, almost no cultivators were innocent, especially the stronger ones. He would find it hard to break his side of the deal even if he wanted to.
Many thoughts ran through the mind of the human ruler, but he had to accept the circumstance.
There was a monster under the city that wanted to devour humans, but if not for it, they would not exist anymore. He was stuck in his position, and no matter how much he wanted things to change, he could not change them. Not with his current strength at least.
He quickly looked for the first monster's human identity, Nie Shanzi.
"There you are." The human ruler said after locating him within the capital building.
"Yes. I was recovering from the battle." The first monster said.
While the human ruler hadn't seen him, it didn't matter. It had been too chaotic for the human ruler to have noticed anyone besides his opponents. In addition, the first monster had a long sword scar down his chest, and a lot of blood on him.
"We need to talk. Privately."
The first monster nodded, and they entered a room that blocked sound from reaching the outside.
The human ruler explained everything that had occurred honestly, and gave the first monster the job of capturing criminals to feed to the monster below the capital.
The first monster put on a reasonably good act of looking shocked and assured the human ruler that he would do his best.
The human ruler left and talked to people about capturing or even raising beasts.
He didn't give them a reason, just telling them they would be paid and not to ask questions.
The first monster did his job, though he occasionally devoured some of the criminals he was supposed to capture. Even if the human ruler was suspicious, he didn't show it at all.
Time passed quickly. Everybody within the human realm seemed to fall into a sort of peace and sameness. A lot of focus was put on growing stronger, and criminals were now rarely seen due to the disappearance of so many.
This time was almost as peaceful as when the first human ruled over the human realm. After all, the hidden threats were eliminated by the first monster, and since all of these hidden threats had high cultivations, they had been devoured long ago.
It was getting annoying to find Immortals to devour within the human realm. He occasionally devoured some random Immortal that could be considered innocent. Even so, the first monster had never even heard of an Immortal that had never killed a person, so he wasn't completely innocent unless you dived deep in the human idea of right and wrong, something he didn't plan to do as it wasn't made up of much logic, just emotions and biased ideas.
Some of the Immortals had been hard to find. But in the end, skinning some of their family members was usually enough to learn where they were. And even if the family didn't know, the person themselves would usually check up on them at some point, and that would lead to the same result, devouring them. Luckily, the first monster had been able to keep all of this away from the eyes of the human ruler or other important beings.
Recently, he had even begun creating death scenes, which led many to believe that some hidden force was taking out these beings to send a message. This was able to take the attention of anyone who could have possibly been suspicious of him.
Even the human ruler had focused on this.
Trillions of years passed without issue. Although the domain of the human realm hadn't grown by any more than double since it shrank, the population had increased a few thousand fold. Some more Immortals were born every now and then, giving the first monster a chance to have a good meal.