Chapter 671: Burning Atlantis
Time flowed slowly across Atlantis, like a river with an even current, its pace neither quickened by human anxiety nor slowed by any expectation.
During this period,
Sacred Aola assumed control of the entire continent’s defense with an undisputed overlord’s authority.
All of Halden’s Sky Cities were brought under control. At the same time, a large number of sorceresses surrounded each Sky City, working day and night to deploy various types of runic formations and modify their rune rings.
And it wasn’t just these Sky Cities.
The will of the Dragon Court extended to every city-state and every border through the network of the Ironblood legions and vassal states. A state of emergency war readiness had long been declared, and all vassal nations were incorporated into a unified wartime command system.
Sacred Aola’s will was like a giant hand, completely forging Atlantis into a single entity.
Everyone was on edge.
Civilians dug cellars, stockpiled grain, and practiced basic self-defense techniques.
Demon identification charts were posted in every town square. People were taught how to quickly flee to shelters when an Abyssal Rift appeared, and multiple evacuation drills were conducted.
Then, month after month passed.
The demons never came.
Wind blew across the wilderness, rain fell on rooftops, the four seasons cycled through their rotations, and vegetation grew as usual.
Everything remained normal.
At first, people interpreted this as a delay.
Perhaps the demons were gathering strength, waiting for a more opportune moment. Maybe tomorrow, maybe next month, they would come.
But another year passed, and still, nothing happened.
Thanks to the stability and order under Sacred Aola’s rule, as time went on, the tension that had permeated Atlantis began to gradually dissipate. People grew less afraid.
This was a good thing.
Negative emotions like panic and fear would, in invisible ways, increase the world’s chaos level.
If Sacred Aola hadn’t used iron-fisted methods at the very beginning to purge cults and rioters, while continuously calming the people and controlling public opinion, even if the demons hadn’t come yet, Atlantis would surely have been engulfed in flames everywhere by now.
By the fifth and sixth years, the Atlantis Continent had entered a strange state.
On the surface, life had returned to normal.
Markets bustled, farms yielded bountiful harvests, festivals and celebrations proceeded as usual, and relaxed smiles reappeared on people’s faces, as if the Abyss would never truly descend.
But every intelligent being who closely monitored the situation knew one thing clearly.
This calm would not last forever.
Beneath the surface, the Empire’s war machine had never stopped running, always ready.
And so, time arrived at the year 757 of the New Calendar.
Deep within a white dwarf, amidst the extremely compressed white darkness, coiled a great dragon.
His body was crushed by unimaginable gravity, but his pair of eyes still shone brilliantly even within the white darkness. His vertical pupils were like two burning coals, flickering faintly.
It was Garoth.
Over these six years, aside from the brief time spent restoring his own condition, he had remained almost entirely on the white dwarf, tirelessly training and tempering himself day and night.
Repeatedly pushing against his own limits, then waiting for his body to adapt, then pushing against new boundaries once more.
His efforts had paid off.
Even for Garoth, six years was a very short time.
However, thanks to the resources supplied by the entire empire, his own extreme training, and the extreme environment of the white dwarf... although it wasn’t a complete qualitative transformation, his body had indeed undergone some changes.
And they were changes that made him stronger.
“Still not coming?”
The red dragon felt the pressure around him and murmured softly.
To be honest, in the deepest part of his heart, Garoth was even somewhat looking forward to the Lord of the Flame Prison’s descent.
The reason was simple.
Just as many dragons yearned for a majestic and domineering title, what the dragons actually wanted wasn’t the title itself, but the meaning it represented, the value they achieved.
Garoth was the same.
During this period, he had been completely focused on tempering himself, silently enduring one lonely and tedious day after another.
But he wasn’t a machine.
Besides his pursuit of power, Garoth had other emotions.
He too could feel boredom, have doubts, and contemplate the meaning of his efforts in the darkness.
Power itself was not the goal; power was meant to achieve some objective.
If he never had the chance to use this power, then what was the point of all the monotony he had endured over these years?
For instance, he needed a powerful enemy to prove that his efforts had not been in vain, that he had indeed become stronger.
That everything he had sacrificed was worth it.
Without receiving some positive feedback, it would be very difficult for him to maintain absolute focus day after day, year after year.
“Patience, he will come eventually.”
The dragon’s chest rose and fell once. He decided not to continue training at this depth.
The current changes were basically the limit for now. Continuing extreme training would make it hard to achieve any qualitative transformation. He needed to settle, a long period of dormancy, to allow his body to undergo an earth-shattering evolution.
He spread his wings and leaped up.
The red iron dragon flew out of the deep pit and arrived on the surface of the white dwarf, engaging in relatively light training to keep his body’s excitement level up.
In the blink of an eye.
Another two months passed. Midsummer approached Atlantis, bringing heavy rain with it.
Thick, dense, and heavy clouds rolled and piled on the horizon, blotting out the sky and the sun. Wind raced along the ground, flattening and raising the tall grass of the wilderness. The air grew sticky, humid, and oppressive, thick with the smell of earth.
People returned home; doors and windows were closed.
All things waited in the stillness before the thunderstorm.
At the same time.
The Bottomless Abyss, the Sulfur Lands.
The color of the sky was thicker than usual, like a cauldron of boiling, mixed blood and iron.
The Lord of the Flame Prison, Asalia, hovered in the sky. The bat-like wings on his back were fully spread, their span blotting out the sky and casting a massive shadow.
Flames rolled in his pupils as he looked down.
Countless demons gathered on the scorched earth, dense and packed. From the lowest dretches to mountain-sized monsters, a dark mass extended to the limits of sight.
They pushed, jostled, and howled at each other.
Fangs clashed, claws scraped, and drool dripped from open mouths.
It was a chaotic, highly dangerous scene.
Then, Asalia slowly raised one arm.
The entire legion’s clamor ceased instantly the moment his hand went up, as if an invisible hand had choked every demon’s throat.
A rare silence appeared in the Abyss, leaving only the bubbling sound of magma and the whoosh of burning flames.
Then, the Lord of the Flame Prison spoke.
“My legion!”
“The previous victory was merely an appetizer. Now, a true feast awaits us! A world filled with fresh blood and flesh, filled with terrified souls!”
The Lord of the Flame Prison’s voice was like magma surging from the depths of the earth.
Low, scalding, every syllable made the air hum and buzz, reaching the ears of every demon, reaching every corner of the Sulfur Lands.
The dretches standing in the front rows trembled from the sound, some even collapsing directly to the ground.
“Those maggots of the Material Plane have waited long enough.”
“Fresh souls, fragile flesh, ants that are trembling... They might think they are safe. But they are wrong. Dead wrong!”
As he spoke, Asalia’s voice carried a hint of cruel laughter, growing more excited.
“Today is their doomsday.”
“I want you to trample every city flat. I want you to build mountains with their bones. I want you to pave the entire sky continent with their remains! Let the insignificant lifeforms of the Material Plane know this.”
“They are nothing but lambs to the slaughter!”
“Their peace was merely the last shred of mercy we granted them! And now, that mercy has ended!”
Fanatic roars erupted from the demon horde, but Asalia’s voice overpowered all the clamor.
“The Abyss does not forget!”
“The Abyss does not forgive!”
“The Abyss—has arrived!”
The Lord of the Flame Prison suddenly swung his arm down, his wings spreading wide like burning banners. The demon legion’s roar soared to the heavens, shaking the very ground of the Sulfur Lands.
Then, Asalia turned his head, his gaze falling upon the demon sorcerers standing ready.
Under his stare, the twisted figures arranged themselves into a massive, contorted formation and simultaneously raised their bone staves.
The sulfurous scent in the air suddenly grew much stronger.
The demon sorcerers began to chant.
It was not an incantation that any mortal language could describe; it was more like the voice of the Abyss itself.
The crisp sound of shattering bones, the wet sound of tearing flesh and blood, the sharp screech of souls in agony... all these sounds were combined to form the voice of the Abyss.
As the chanting progressed, streaks of dark purple light flared up.
They surged from the fissures in the ground and descended from the chaotic sky.
Intertwining, converging, rising.
They tore open huge, jagged rips in the void, their edges appearing like torn, serrated wounds, rolling with dark purple energy, as if bleeding gashes were being forcibly ripped open.
The demons could no longer contain themselves.
Seduced by the Material Plane, they ignored any commands, howling madly as they surged toward the rifts. Using their claws and fangs to tear, using their bodies to ram, they frantically vied to make the rifts larger, wider, and more stable.
Asalia, however, was not in a hurry.
He folded his wings, standing atop a demon warship, coldly watching his claws and fangs swarm toward the rifts.
These vanguard units were destined for heavy casualties.
So what?
The Abyss was full of cannon fodder.
Bernardo, Atlantis.
The sky was shrouded in thick, dense, and heavy clouds, rolling and piling, blotting out the sun. The entire continent was sunk in a viscous gray darkness.
The air was humid, heavy, and oppressive. The smell of earth wafted from the upturned soil.
Above the clouds, the iron dragon Sorog was circling.
He had been flying for a long time, his massive iron-gray dragon wings sweeping across the sky, piercing through layer after layer of clouds, his gaze scanning the ground below.
Farmland, towns, roads, and rivers had all become miniature patterns.
Like a giant sand table, everything appeared very calm.
Then, the rain poured down.
The sky was like a bag slashed open with a knife. The rain poured out in an instant, so dense it almost squeezed all the air out of the world.
The rain curtained the view like a screen of water, blurring everything in the downpour.
Sorog stopped.
He didn’t continue flying. His massive body hovered in mid-air, letting the rain wash over his scales, producing a dense, heavy sound.
“This feeling...”
Sorog felt a wave of unease, a heart-pounding alarm.
It was an instinctual warning.
After a brief hesitation, the iron dragon’s pupils contracted into thin slits. He abruptly lifted his head and stared into the sky.
Above the rain curtain, above the clouds, at the limit of what the naked eye could reach, the rune rings of the Sky Cities were changing color.
A pale blue light was devoured in an instant.
A red light ignited.
A glaring, scorching red, like fresh blood, flared up simultaneously from the rune rings of every Sky City.
The light was so intense that it pierced through the thick rain curtain and clouds, dyeing the entire sky a dark red. Raindrops fell in the red light, as if the sky itself was bleeding.
Sorog’s pupils contracted sharply.
An early warning.
This was the highest level of early warning.
Since the Abyss’s erosion was so deep that destroying the Sky Cities couldn’t stop its invasion, after Aola took control of the Sky Cities, instead of trying to destroy them, they prioritized some modifications.
For example, detection formations that could instantly sense an Abyssal invasion.
Abyssal energy had a unique wavelength and characteristics. The detection formations were specifically designed for these traits. As soon as an Abyssal Rift tore open near a Sky City, the formation would immediately respond, changing the color of the rune rings from blue to red.
So.
When the rune rings turned red, it meant the Abyss’s invasion had arrived.
He spread his wings, climbing altitude at his fastest speed. A dragon roar erupted from his chest cavity, like a war drum striking beneath the heavy sky.
ROAR!
The iron dragon raised his head, letting out a deep dragon roar that cut through the wind and rain, spreading in all directions.
But faster than the roar were the alarm runes that had been deployed everywhere.
These runes were buried underground, engraved in stones, inlaid within city walls, distributed in every corner of Atlantis. They transmitted the news of the Abyssal invasion across all of Atlantis at a speed surpassing sound.
Then, war drums sounded.
This was the drumbeat from the Red Emperor Capital.
Deep, grand, heart-shaking.
One war drum beat, then ten, then a hundred, then a thousand. The drum sound spread through the rain curtain at an unnatural speed, vibrating through the moisture, traveling across every inch of Atlantis, reaching the ears of every soldier.
Sacred Aola’s reaction speed was frighteningly fast.
Over the years, the Empire’s war machine had never stopped running, never relaxed for even a single day.
Every soldier knew exactly where they should stand and when. Every legion had drilled the emergency assembly process countless times. Every logistics route had been tested repeatedly.
The moment the war drums sounded, the entire war machine activated instantly.
Aola’s legions moved into their combat positions with astonishing efficiency.
Immediately after, the sound of countless iron hooves hitting the ground echoed through the torrential rain.
The centaur cavalry was the first to surge out of the camps.
They wore red steel battle armor and wielded heavy lances. Their horse-human bodies galloping across the wilderness looked like moving iron towers.
Hooves plunged into the mud, splashing water several feet high.
Raindrops bounced off their armor, condensed into beads on their lance tips, only to be shaken off in an instant.
The centaur cavalry’s faces were stern, their eyes gazing ahead through the gaps in their faceplates, devoid of any superfluous emotion. Their upper bodies leaned forward slightly, and their enchanted spears and lances were held at a uniform angle. From a distance, they looked like a moving forest of steel.
Following close behind was the ogre heavy armor legion.
These colossal beings stepped with heavy strides, each step causing the ground to sink slightly.
They wore thick, multi-layered armor. The breastplates bore the engraved dragon head emblem of Scarlet Emperor Cangxing, their pauldrons had sharpened ramming spikes, and under their helmets, only a pair of cold, battle-hungry eyes were visible, as they wielded heavy war hammers or great axes.
Centaurs, ogres.
Sacred Aola’s most iconic unit types. Each one’s physique had grown significantly larger than in the wilderness era, far exceeding the body standards of their ordinary racial counterparts.
They were muscular, sturdy, and powerful, more capable of inspiring fear than the vast majority of demons.
In the sky, dragons spread their wings.
One dragon after another flew out from the Dragon Nests scattered across the region, converging in the rain curtain into an unstoppable torrent.
Their wingspans blocked the rain, and the airwaves from their wingbeats nearly blew the rain sideways into horizontal waterfalls. They rose in combat formations, their low dragon roars echoing one after another.
Besides dragons, streaks of crimson light also flashed across the sky.
Flying wheels and shuttles.
These new-model aerial vehicles, combining Halden technology with Aola craftsmanship, were painted in a uniform deep red livery. After years of mass production, they had reached a considerable scale.
They rose in large numbers from the military ports.
The flying wheels were disc-shaped, their rims surrounded by high-speed, blade-like rune rings. When flying at high speed, they left a trail of red light in the sky, like shooting stars streaking across the heavens. The flying shuttles were long and nimble, shaped like spindles, equipped with ranged weapons.
Then, the earth began to split.
On the wilderness, in the valleys, on the outskirts of the mountains—on all pre-deployed positions, huge fissures opened in the ground.
Towering alchemical colossi slowly rose from the cracks.
Although none of them were as big as the Platinum Star, they were still at least tens of meters tall, a spectacular sight. Standing on the ground and looking up at these colossi, people had to tilt their heads to an uncomfortable angle to see their full form.
Moreover, there were many of them.
Even more than the alchemical colossi deployed by the Halden Empire when it attacked the Abyss.
The reason lay with the operators.
These massive war machines were not controlled by alchemists or enchanted intelligence.
Both the former and the latter were extremely difficult to create in batches, and the limiting factor for the production of these giant alchemical colossi was often not the materials, but the control system.
Inside every Aola colossus, multiple kobolds were working together in an orderly fashion.
This was a unique creation of Sacred Aola.
In the traditional alchemical golem manufacturing system, large alchemical constructs required high-level alchemists to expend a great deal of mental energy to control, or else undergo a complex spirit-enchanting ritual, which severely limited the mass production and deployment of giant constructs.
When Aola was still the Molten Iron Tribe, they had already found a different path.
Why not break down the control task, having multiple operators each be responsible for one part?
After years of repeated experimentation and improvement, especially after acquiring Halden’s alchemical technologies, Aola’s technology had also advanced by leaps and bounds. This ‘multi-operator collaborative control system’ had reached a fairly mature level.
And the kobolds, considered extremely weak in the eyes of ordinary people, were a very abundant source of such operators.
Viewing from the sky.
Atlantis had transformed into a giant military fortress.
Countless soldiers formed an indestructible line on the ground. One dragon after another circled in the sky. Flying wheels and shuttles wove an impenetrable net in the air. Alchemical colossi stood like iron gods.
The rain continued to pour down, enveloping heaven and earth in a white curtain.
The rain soaked the soldiers’ armor, the dragons’ scales, the constructs’ plating... but no one cared.
There was no chaos or panic.
Every legion stood ready in its position. All preparations were for this moment.
At the same time.
Above the Dragon Court.
A crimson rift appeared inch by inch in mid-air, its edges still flickering with flames.
A giant claw covered in dragon scales reached out from the rift, gripped its edge, and tore it wider with force. Then, the figure of the red iron dragon stepped out from the deep void.
Garoth had returned.
The moment he landed, the rain around him warped instantly.
With him at the center, within a certain range of his body, the trajectories of the raindrops were drastically deflected. The rain lines bent, twisted, and converged around his body into a spiraling vortex, circling layer by layer as they drew towards him.
As if his body itself was a miniature supergravity star.
Garoth was no longer surprised by this.
WHOOSH!
Dragon Qi ignited, wrapping around his entire body like flames.
The twisted, invisible force field seemed to be constrained. The rain returned to its normal trajectory.
Then, the red iron dragon raised his head, his vertical pupils fixed on the outlines of the Sky Cities above the clouds.
At the same time.
Inside a Sky City.
The sky city that once belonged to Halden was now devoid of any people.
The residents had long been transferred to ground settlement areas. All supplies, equipment, and valuable relics had been cleared out, leaving only empty streets and buildings.
Then, a dark purple energy welled up.
A rift appeared silently and instantly began to expand, bifurcate, and spread. Centered on a constantly expanding massive rift, countless tiny rifts extended in all directions like a spiderweb.
This rift was not just on the Sky City.
Countless gashes were also torn open in space.
On the other end were countless hungry, crazed eyes, bloodthirsty jaws wide open. The demon legion had arrived.
A twisted demon warship was the first to squeeze out of the largest rift.
Giant war-beast vermin, this terrifying creation commonly referred to as a demon warship, was covered in dark carapace. Its surface had countless embedded demons shrieking. The bow stood tall, shaped like a monster’s head.
The warship’s deck was also densely packed with demons.
Flomo demons flapped their wings, eager to take flight. Berserker demons tightened their grip on their axes. Quasits darted through the gaps, emitting sharp laughs.
And around the warship, countless demons surged directly from the rifts. Some flapped their wings and flew into the sky, while others, without wings, screamed as they plummeted from the heights.
It was like a rainstorm made of flesh and blood.
And it wasn’t just this one Sky City.
In every Sky City in the sky over Atlantis, the same scene was unfolding simultaneously.
The demons poured out from these rifts like a bursting dam, instantly filling every street and every square of every Sky City.
It was raining from the sky, and it was raining demons.
Then, the first wave fell to the great earth.
By normal logic, falling from such a height would be enough to smash most demons into pulp.
But that was not the reality.
Mud splashed, rain roared. They landed solidly on Atlantis’s soil, got up, bared their fangs, and let out deafening roars.
A faint glow on the demons’ bodies vanished at the same time.
This was a large-scale protective spell cast by the demon sorcerers before the invasion, granting them immunity to fall damage.
Meanwhile, the iron dragon Sorog circled high in the sky.
He noticed the red iron dragon’s return, nodded slightly to his blood kin from across the vast distance, then withdrew his gaze. His vertical pupils coldly watched everything, without a word.
He was waiting.
Then, the density of demons climbed rapidly.
The originally empty streets of the Sky Cities were now packed with dark masses of demonic figures, pushing, trampling, and howling at each other, all scrambling to get ahead.
When the demon density reached its peak.
The iron dragon Sorog raised his head and let out a clear dragon roar.
The Aola sorceresses and spellcasters, who had long been waiting for the signal, responded immediately.
And so, the rune rings of the Sky Cities began to flash.
The red vanished. A white light began to spread, from the outside in, along every rune line, every formation node, every carved groove, at a dizzying speed.
The runic formations of the Sky Cities were all activated in an instant.
BOOM!
A visible ring of shockwave erupted. Wherever it passed, city walls crumbled, towers collapsed. A scorching white Purification fire then gushed forth, like a giant white lotus suddenly blooming.
Wherever the light touched, countless demons screamed and were reduced to ashes.
The Sky City became a white sun.
The blazing light illuminated the entire rain curtain, turning the dark red sky as bright as day. The sounds of explosions, demonic shrieks, and the roar of Purification fire mixed together, rising and falling.
Then came the second, third, fourth...
Since the Abyssal invasion couldn’t be stopped by destroying the Sky Cities, they would be turned into graves for the first wave of invaders.
Every Sky City taken over by Sacred Aola had been rigged with explosion and Purification formations.
One after another, they exploded in the sky, turning into brilliant fireworks. The debris of the ruins, carrying white flames, fell from the sky, carving countless streaks of light through the rain curtain.
From a distance, it looked like a grand and deadly meteor shower.
The flames burned in the sky for a long time.
However, the demon invasion was not stopped.
Although the Sky Cities were destroyed, and the demon vanguard legion was buried, the Abyssal Rifts did not disappear. They floated in the sky.
Demon warships slowly emerged.
With these super-giant demon constructs as their center, flying demons circled and dove.
Common demons fell like raindrops, crashed onto the ground, got up, and quickly gathered, spreading across the flatlands into a surging dark tide.
They were not intimidated by the destruction of the first wave of vanguards.
In the Abyss, the fate of cannon fodder was to die. They were long used to this.
The demons howled and began their charge.
The Abyssal invasion had officially begun.
At the same time, the Iron Royal Duke withdrew his gaze from the demons, finally landing on the Aola legions standing ready on the ground.
Sorog took a deep breath.
Then, a majestic dragon roar erupted from deep within his chest.
“Warriors of Sacred Aola.”
“For the great Emperor! For your Empire! For victory and glory!”
A brief silence.
Then, a thousand voices answered him simultaneously.
Dragon-blooded warriors struck their weapons against their shields. Ogres hammered the ground with their war hammers. Centaur cavalry raised their lances high, the tips tracing countless silvery, cold flashes of light in the rain.
All the sounds merged into one, converging into a war cry louder than thunder.
“For victory and glory! For Sacred Aola!”
“ROAR!!!”
“Burn these scum to ashes!”
The Fire Princess issued a roar.
As a legendary red dragon who controlled flames, her voice carried a natural scorching heat and excitement. Just hearing her voice was enough to make dragons feel their blood boil.
The dragon flock, which had been circling for a long time, raised their wings simultaneously and began to climb.
Among them, besides the legendary dragons, each one was at least a prime great dragon, with a life level approaching legendary. The wind pressure from their wings nearly dried up the rain.
Their speed broke the sound barrier within seconds, the air tearing with a deafening sonic boom.
They looked like one unstoppable giant arrow after another, shooting towards the black curtain formed by demons in the sky.
Dragon Breath spewed from their throats, turning countless demons into dust.
Flying wheels and shuttles, and other constructs, followed closely behind.
The flying wheels shuttled through the enemy formation, their high-speed rotating rune rings slicing through demon bodies like blades, dismembering them up close. The flying shuttles kept their distance, firing one high-energy beam after another, interweaving with the Dragon Breath to form an impenetrable net of fire.
After a volley, several demon warships collapsed, their burning wreckage falling.
The demon fleet returned fire. Abyssal flames and the light of magic cannons collided and clashed in the rain curtain, exploding into countless dazzling orbs of light.
On the ground.
The alchemical colossi took heavy steps, each step crushing the demon hordes on the ground.
The other unit types also launched their charge.
Facing the terrifying demons, the Aola warriors showed none of the fear that ordinary lifeforms would.
At the same time, the Fang of Aola swung his giant wings.
He flew into the sky, then spread his wings and crashed like a meteorite into the very center of the demon horde. His heavy body sent out a shockwave, creating a massive ring-shaped crater on the ground.
Not a single demon within the crater survived.
“Haha, little bugs!”
“Come on, your Uncle Karu will show you what true cruelty means!”
The Dragon-blooded Gluttonous Ogre got up, surging with fierce Dragon Qi, transforming into a terrifying three-headed, six-armed form. His murderous aura even suppressed the demon generals among the enemy.
A berserker demon warlord charged to challenge him. Karu smashed its weapon with one punch and crushed its skull with the second.
Looking at him was like seeing a majestic, towering figure.
This was the shadow of the Red Emperor, the embodiment of dragon bloodline power.
Every dragon vein vassal reflected their creator to some extent, and Karu’s frenzied stance at this moment was a perfect match for the Red Emperor’s overwhelming posture on the battlefield.
A low-level demon general was momentarily dazed, distracted for an instant in the heat of battle.
SWISH!
A centaur, wreathed in holy light, hovered in the sky and fired two arrows.
The arrows turned into white meteors, instantly piercing the rain curtain, drilling through the demon general’s head and heart, carrying a spray of dark red demon blood.
This legendary demon, who had carelessly lost focus in the midst of the great battle, was killed outright.
The war had erupted on all fronts.
Rainwater and blood mixed together, flowing into the mud and gathering in depressions, dyeing the earth a deep, unfathomable ochre red.
The sounds of howls, clashing metal, the sizzle of dragon fire searing flesh, the death screams of demons... all these sounds were wrapped in the rain curtain, weighing heavily upon the earth as they spread into the distance.
The red iron dragon stood upon the Dragon Court.
The Aola legions clashed fiercely with the Abyssal tide. The front line advanced, seesawed, and shifted in the rain curtain. Alchemical colossi crushed wide, bloody paths through the demon hordes. Flying wheels exploded in the air into red sparks, only to be replaced by their successors...
He took all of this in at a glance.
However, he did not directly participate.
Aola’s warriors needed victory and glory, not to merely scrape by entirely under the Emperor’s protection. They yearned to experience blood and fire.
Moreover.
These demons were just a prelude. The extent of the rifts’ expansion was also limited. Garoth had no interest in wasting his strength on them.
The true threat had yet to appear.
The Lord of the Flame Prison, Asalia.
This demon lord had not yet appeared. Even based on the current battle situation and the extent of the rifts, it seemed difficult for him to descend. But Garoth knew that, no matter what, he would definitely come to the Material Plane in person.