Chapter 64: Alone
The seal line collapsed.
The Abyssal Demon Realm hadn’t intentionally broken it. As the Abyssal Lord had tried to reawaken, a series of cataclysms had erupted along the seal line.
A torrential downpour of fire, lightning arcing through the sky, splitting mountains.
And from the earth, a corrosive, toxic miasma, so potent that even the demons most skilled in its use dared not approach, for a single touch would reduce them to ash.
And under this assault, the seal line, constructed by the first Abyss Council, finally shattered.
And the two worlds, Solor and the Abyss, which had been separated by the seal, now began to merge.
The Abyss’s miasma spread across Solor, its touch withering trees, turning grasslands a purplish-black.
The native life of Solor could not survive in the Abyss’s environment. This was one of the reasons the two worlds could never coexist.
If the Abyssal Lord were to reawaken, the land around her would become a desolate wasteland, like the Place of Divine Advent, a blight that would spread across the world.
Unless she was defeated, the demons of the Abyss would be forced to flee their homeland, to seek refuge on Solor.
Although the Abyssal Lord had not yet awakened, the various demon factions, driven by a multitude of reasons, had all answered Elthorp’s call, their legions now poised to invade Solor.
As if it had only been waiting for the seal to break, the horrifying cataclysm subsided, leaving only a scorched, barren wasteland.
And like a scene from centuries ago, the demon legions, who had been gathered at the seal line, now charged towards Solor.
Thankfully, the North Empire and the Bewildering Forest had been preparing for two weeks, their defenses in place, their forces mobilized.
Although their preparations had been rushed, their defenses incomplete, their opponents were also unprepared.
And after a long, hard-fought battle, the alliance of the North Empire and the Bewildering Forest had managed to repel the demons’ first, and most ferocious, assault.
The Savage Lands, however, were not so lucky. Only a few months had passed since Queen Arachne’s death, and the beastkin were still in a state of chaos.
And with their strongest race, the Hellblood Spiders, now all but extinct, they were at their weakest.
The demon legions tasked with invading the Savage Lands had quickly achieved victory, their advance a relentless tide, pushing deep into beastkin territory, the Abyss’s corruption spreading with them.
But Elthorp, who had fought in the Savage Lands before, knew there were still many dangerous lands to be avoided.
His legions had bypassed the most dangerous of all, the Tide of Madness, not just because of Queen Shaya’s lingering aura, but also because of… another, unknown, super-powerful being. The Illusion Fox, “Zi.”
Of course, Zi had already left, but Elthorp didn’t know that.
The war progressed quickly. Elthorp, in a race against time, had ordered all his legions to adopt a scorched-earth policy.
Take what you can, destroy the rest.
Slaughter every living being on Solor, and after plundering the cities, burn them to the ground.
Although it was a wasteful strategy, it was also incredibly effective, allowing the demon legions to expand their territory at an alarming rate.
Besides the three major powers of Solor, the North Empire, the Bewildering Forest, and the Savage Lands, there were many smaller, scattered races, the strongest of which numbered only in the tens of thousands.
The North Empire had once been one of them, a relatively strong one, a remnant of the ancient empire.
It was only after the Battle of Saint Noyes, when a single squad had annihilated an entire demon legion, that the other powers had begun to take them seriously.
And after the chaos of the Imperial Festival, and the Battle of Vikarn, the North Empire had finally reclaimed its former glory, becoming one of the most powerful factions on Solor.
But the North Empire was an exception. The other smaller races, faced with the full force of the demon legions, had been utterly destroyed.
So, although the North Empire and the Bewildering Forest had managed to hold off the initial blitzkrieg, the overall situation on Solor was grim.
The tide of victory had turned towards the Abyss. It seemed the best they could hope for was to hold on, to survive.
But the frequent reports of victory did little to ease the frown on Elthorp’s face. His greatest worry was still unresolved.
His spies had reported that Bai, after leaving Vampire territory, had made a beeline for the heart of the Abyss.
She hadn’t even tried to conceal her movements. Anyone who asked could learn that a beautiful, silver-haired little girl was heading in that direction.
She was no longer stalling. But Elthorp was.
“How much longer?” he asked, his voice low.
“My lord… we estimate she will reach the heart of the Abyss in two days,” a guard replied.
Seeing the worry on his face, the guard asked, “If you are concerned, my lord, I can take a team to delay her…”
“No,” Elthorp interrupted. “There’s no point. If she doesn’t want to be delayed, no one can stop her.”
“The only one who could possibly stop her… is me.”
He drew the Evil Blade from his spine, and it hummed with a hungry excitement. “I always thought her idealism was a weakness. Shaya, Isabelle, even Vivian… they were all the same.”
“But this time, there’s no one to help her. No one to stand by her side.”
“She is all alone.”
