Book 9, Chapter 110
The Final Path
Arbidis was a strange place, its laws so powerful that they almost completely suppressed everything Richard knew. His black hole wasn’t even able to break a small section of the area, leaving the origin energy of the plane entirely unaffected. After a few pulses that devoured everything in sight, it was drained of energy and withered away.
He spent two entire hours processing the devil archlord’s corpse, only then able to store it in his spatial equipment. This was the first complete spoils of war he had, and were it placed on the altar of the Eternal Dragon it would likely be traded for a lesser rank 1 blessing.
With the loot taken care of, Richard led his now-small party into the depths of Arbidis. His bloodline finally showed its value, frightening away devil and demon alike to the point that only lesser lords even had the gall to engage him. His followers seemed like beings of the abyss as well, allowing them to avoid more than half the potential battles they would have faced. Richard could even command the weaker demons at times, giving them support in battle.
However, this was still the Eternal Battlefield, a vast land of death and bloodshed with no end in sight. The group journeyed downwards for three straight months but didn’t feel any closer; the ground beneath them still sloped downwards, and there were demons and devils engaged in battle all around. Richard couldn’t even sense the passage they had come through any more, but he couldn’t sense an exit either.
There were also many battles that one simply couldn’t avoid. Even Richard didn’t know just when a portal would appear around him, and near the end of the third month he found himself facing a powerful level 30 devil with a full army behind. More than half of the broodmother’s worms died in that battle, leaving only three alive. Outside of Nasia, all of his followers were hurt in some fashion. He himself sustained the most damage of them all, having relied on his own ability to decapitate the hardy archlord.
Richard’s injuries in that battle were very severe, but it was difficult to activate the power of the green moon in the abyss. Left with no choice, he dug out the lord’s core and dug in. While the core was larger than his own body, it turned into pure energy as he bit down, flowing in and healing his injuries. He even buffed up significantly, having jumped to level 27 immediately and used the energy on his physique. He could no longer place himself as a mage or warrior in terms of battle style.
The injured followers consumed the cores of the lesser lords as well, silently chomping down as they used the excess energy to heal themselves. Zealor was the most averse to it, instinctively spitting whenever he took a bite, but summoning a burst of courage he shoved as much as he could down his throat before blocking it off with a stone.
After a full day of rest, Richard and his followers were back in optimal condition. However, Richard couldn’t relax at all as he realised that there was now a trace of poison in his body, having fused with his energy and become extremely difficult to expel. The rest of his followers would certainly find it impossible to get it out of their system.
Once Richard’s party left, the devil corpses littered all over the ground attracted a horde of demons. Those that managed to get at the lesser lords started to form bloody cocoons right where they stood, beginning an evolutionary phase.
Witnessing the scene from hundreds of kilometres away, Richard suddenly had a revelation about the true purpose of the Eternal Battlefield. Both devils and demons came here solely to consume the flesh of their eternal foes, using that energy to evolve into their most powerful forms. Only a handful of the archlords here actually came from the hells or the abyss; most evolved out of the lucky few.
This place was simply a furnace designed to turn ordinary demons and devils into lords! Countless battles over billions of years had made for a system where the lives of the many were sacrificed for the strength of the few!
He suddenly bent down, grabbing a handful of dirt off the ground and grinding apart so he could get a better look. The mud was greasy and dark, smelling strangely like something that had been burnt. Hidden amongst it were countless fine grains of crystal, containing the power of order and chaos.
These actions seemed relaxed, but in reality the black mud was many times tougher than even lafite. The simple kneading would have destroyed most legendary weapons! Seeing what Richard was doing, Zangru grew a little curious and bent down to grab some himself. However, he yelped in surprise as nothing came up, his hand not even making a mark in the soil. He had to prepare himself and gather his energy around his fingers, driving down with force only to dig up a few small fragments.
Richard continued to play around with the mud in his hands, placing some on the tip of his nose and taking a slight whiff. He nodded right after, passing the grains to his puzzled followers, “This isn’t mud, it’s blood.”
The followers were sceptical for a moment, but as they examined the grains their expressions warped into shock and revelation. Countless demons and devils had died fighting on this land over the untold number of years this war had been fought, and their blood slowly compacted into the earth, layer after layer. The power of order and chaos thus filled this land, welding together into a strange substance that was harder than most metals.
The value of this black mud was inestimable. It could be added into most equipment and boost it by a grade instantly, and a handful would be considered a greater offering to the Eternal Dragon. Such a substance was everywhere in this bloody battlefield, with no way to exhaust it all!
Richard finally understood just why neither the devils nor the demons had grown powerful enough to take over the rest of the myriad planes yet. Each side was too focused on harming the other, so Arbidis had evolved into a place that both strengthened and limited archlords. One couldn’t heal here without eating flesh, but that poisoned flesh would eventually accumulate into certain death, even for an archlord. The demons had strengthened their bodies to combat this poison, while the devils tried to assimilate the laws of order to neutralise the danger. Both sides were walking completely different paths, but neither had gained an upper hand.
Richard was in no rush to advance, resting for a full three days while his followers dealt with any wayward devils. He spent this time studying the poisonous essence the devil lord had left within him, eventually waking up with a strange look on his face.
“Anything wrong?” Greyhawk asked.
“Sigh, nothing. I just had a strange thought that I might be able to use in the future. Come, let’s keep going.”
Over this period of analysis, he had concluded that he was indeed capable of breaking down the working of the poisonous essence. He would be able to unravel these billion-year-old mysteries in under a hundred years, giving rise to a shortcut of sorts that was truly astonishing. While he wasn’t a pure-blooded demon, he could still eat devils for power. The poison from the devils was laced with the laws of order, but his elven truename could break apart most of that power. He could thus absorb enemy archlords almost limitlessly, giving him a real chance to become the first person in Norlandic history to break past the realm of archlord.
That meant he would be beyond epic! Even with Richard’s strength of mind, he couldn’t help but be tempted to simply hunker down in this place for a few decades. Fortunately, he convinced himself otherwise with the fact that he had responsibilities to fulfil, and that pure energy didn’t have as much meaning in his realm of power. It was the control of laws that truly mattered.
As he comprehended more laws, Richard had started to feel a longing to be able to break through the limits of power. He wanted to explore the ends of existence, a dream that Martin had once expressed. At that time, he had thought it was just wishful thinking, but now he could truly understand the allure of those words. The pursuit of evolution was a final instinct embedded into every being with a soul.
However, this thought only briefly crossed his mind before he squashed it, continuing to lead his followers into the depths of this boundless land.