Vol 3. Chapter 86: Adding Insult to Injury
Can Abyss Demons fly?
Regarding this question, most factions on the Anqieka Continent shared a common understanding. Aside from a small number of Abyss Demons possessing the ability to fly, as well as special existences above the Seventh Tier, the vast majority of Abyss Demons were incapable of flight.
It wasn't strange for them to have formed such an understanding.
After all, over the past several centuries, every single Abyss Demon invasion had consisted of densely packed hordes charging across the ground. Attacks from the sky were exceedingly rare. Thus, quite a few so-called 'experts' concluded that since there weren't many flying species within the Great Winter Forest, the Abyss Demons born from them naturally wouldn't possess the ability to fly either.
However,
did Abyss Demons really only know how to charge across the ground?
The answer was naturally no.
Strictly speaking, there were plenty of bird-type magical beasts and flying dragon-type magical beasts deep within the Great Winter Forest. Aside from high-tier Abyss Demons, Lady Yumo had already amassed quite a considerable number of Abyss Demons capable of flight within the Great Winter Forest.
The main reason she rarely deployed this 'air force' was actually out of consideration for human society.
Several centuries ago, after suffering defeat during their first punitive expedition, the human world had already been severely weakened. Back then, humans had tremendous difficulty merely resisting ordinary Abyss Demons attacking from the ground, let alone dealing with attacks from the sky.
To prevent humanity from completely losing all hope of survival, giving up entirely, and retreating into underground fortresses or something like that, Yumo subsequently restricted the deployment of flying Abyss Demons.
As a result, the major human factions focused most of their attention on constructing city walls, while the cities behind those walls were able to develop with relative peace of mind.
Even when Lady Yumo occasionally sent Abyss Demons out to harass them, she generally went along with humanity's expectations and had them attack several of the most heavily fortified military strongholds along the border. Even when she occasionally dispatched some flying Abyss Demons, their numbers weren't particularly large. Humanity's griffin knights and those Saint-Class experts capable of flight were more than sufficient to deal with them.
......
......
As time passed, the idea that most Abyss Demons couldn't fly seemed to become deeply rooted throughout the human world.
Precisely because of this,
when an overwhelming horde of Abyss Demons suddenly appeared in the sky, blotting out the heavens and dense enough to trigger anyone's trypophobia, it wasn't only Xue Tianao who revealed an utterly unprepared expression. People from the Asumos Church, the Holy Tower, the Crimson Leaf Empire, and various other factions were equally caught completely off guard.
As for the civilians within the city, the moment they saw the massive black swarm of Abyss Demons descending from the sky, they were scared completely out of their wits.
Panic spread through the crowd like a virus.
The city descended into chaos as people desperately rushed toward southern Skyvault, attempting to escape through Skyvault's southern gate......
Of course,
no matter how one looked at it, the people who were the most terrified and uneasy were undoubtedly the griffin knights in the sky and the pilots aboard the steel airships.
After all, they were the first people who would come into contact with the Abyss Demon horde.
And naturally, they became its first victims.
Unsurprisingly,
the Abyss Demon horde immediately launched a vicious assault on the griffin knights.
Most of these Abyss Demons had been arranged by Yumo to sleep deep within the Great Winter Forest. Now that they had finally awakened after so long, the violence pent up within them naturally needed somewhere to be unleashed......
"BOOM!!"
Accompanied by an explosive eruption of black Shadow of Silence Power, a bloody storm instantly swept across the sky.
There weren't many griffin knights to begin with, and only a little over three hundred knights had been assigned to escort these steel airships.
Under ordinary circumstances, that would have been enough to deal with a small number of flying Abyss Demons.
But now?
Facing the encirclement and slaughter of nearly one hundred thousand Abyss Demons, the fate of these three hundred griffin knights wasn't difficult to imagine......
Amid wave after wave of miserable screams,
the griffin knights and their mounts were barely able to put up any effective resistance before the ravenous Abyss Demon horde tore them apart and swallowed them into their stomachs.
Their deaths could only be described as utterly horrific.
Blood, shattered organs, severed limbs, and bloodstained pieces of armor continuously rained down from the sky......
In mere moments, all three hundred-plus griffin knights were dead.
And without the protection of the griffin knights, the steel airships naturally became the next targets of the Abyss Demons' collective assault.
Although the mages aboard the airships and the fixed artillery batteries were desperately using everything they had to counterattack the Abyss Demons, their firepower was nothing more than a drop in the ocean against such an enormous number of enemies......
To put it more crudely,
it was fucking useless......
Accompanied by a series of deafening explosions,
amid the pilots' and mages' heart-rending screams, countless Nihility Cannons slammed directly into the steel airships.
Under the relentless bombardment of the Nihility Cannons, two steel airships disintegrated in midair, transforming into countless steel meteors engulfed in roaring flames as they plummeted from the sky.
The flagship with somewhat stronger defenses, which Xue Tianao had named 'Future,' began spewing thick black smoke as it rapidly fell from the sky before violently crashing into the scorched earth outside the city.
"BOOOOM!!!"
The instant the airship collided with the ground, flames erupted toward the heavens......
Brilliant firelight blossomed across the earth, while the thick smell of burning permeated the air.
Although some of the pilots and mages had wisely parachuted out in time and were fortunate enough to avoid being caught in the explosion, without the steel airships protecting them, they were forced to face the tens of thousands of bloodthirsty beasts outside all by themselves.
When the Abyss Demon horde surrounded these survivors, they couldn't help regretting their decision to parachute out.
Compared to being torn apart and devoured alive by Abyss Demons,
perhaps being blown to pieces instantly would have been a relatively dignified way to die?
Unfortunately, they had already lost the right to choose again.
Before any of them could even cry for help or scream, the Abyss Demons swarmed forward and tore them to pieces in an instant......
And with that,
the forces Xue Tianao had dispatched outside the city to confront the Abyss Demon horde were completely annihilated.
Outside the city had become nothing short of hell on earth......
--
Watching the human tragedy displayed on the projection screen, staring at the wreckage of the warships billowing with thick black smoke,
and the severed limbs and chunks of flesh scattered all over the ground......
Only a few minutes earlier, those severed limbs had belonged to powerful Royal Knights......
The civilians who had only moments ago been celebrating the Royal Knights' victory and loudly chanting Xue Tianao's name suddenly fell completely silent.
Their eyes were filled with disbelief as they stared fixedly at the images on the screen.
And when they finally accepted the reality before them, the fear that had only barely been suppressed suddenly surged back, effortlessly occupying everyone's hearts once again......
"Quick! Run!"
No one knew who shouted those words, but the crowd in Dragon Dance Square instantly erupted into chaos, everyone scrambling over one another as they fled toward the outside of the Imperial Palace.
Even the Imperial Guards who should have been maintaining order froze where they stood after witnessing their comrades die so effortlessly beneath the claws and fangs of the Abyss Demons. They had absolutely no desire to stop the rioting crowd.
"Don't...... Don't panic!"
Looking down at the out-of-control crowd below, Xue Tianao tried to stop them.
He tried to calm the civilians once again.
However,
this time, his reassurance had absolutely no effect.
No matter how much the newly crowned emperor shouted, the civilians' panic didn't diminish in the slightest.
There were even quite a few people who, while fleeing past the elevated platform, directly cast hateful and deeply suspicious gazes toward Xue Tianao.
After all, some of their relatives had participated in the 'counterattack' Xue Tianao had spoken of.
Even among those who didn't look at him with hatred or suspicion,
the initial worship and trust had vanished from their eyes.
At that moment,
Xue Tianao realized that after this devastating defeat, the trust of the people that he had painstakingly cultivated for so long might already be gone......
Not only had more than half of his most elite Royal Knights, Imperial Guards, and Griffin Knights been lost, but he had also lost the people's support......
Losing the people's support along with more than half of his elite forces meant that his ability to rule the Snow Night Empire would plummet dramatically.
Moreover,
in front of everyone, he had just proclaimed that his army could easily defeat the Abyss Demon horde.
And now, hadn't he just been fucking slapped in the face on the spot?!
Feeling the strange gazes cast toward him by the envoys of the various factions, Xue Tianao clenched his fists tightly in humiliated fury and stared at the Abyss Demon horde on the projection screen with incomparably hateful eyes.
'These fucking beasts!'
However,
as the saying went, when the roof leaked, it always seemed to rain all night.
Just as Xue Tianao was cursing inwardly, a black meteor carrying an overwhelmingly powerful aura suddenly tore across the sky and violently smashed into the city's defensive barrier.
As the oppressive fluctuations of Shadow of Silence Power abruptly spread outward......
the alarms throughout the city began to blare.
Xue Tianao's expression changed violently once more, becoming increasingly twisted and ferocious:
"That...... that aura? An Abyss Demon? And Demon King-Class?!"
Fuck!
Fuck, another Abyss Demon horde?! Another Demon King-Class?!
Is this ever going to fucking end?!!