122: Chapter 122 The Reverse Invasion of the Abyss Gate and the Arrival of the Swarm
The Abyss Plane, 666th Floor.
Rivers of lava split the earth here, every inch of soil soaked in the lethal toxicity of sulfur. The air was scorching, every breath bringing a scraping sting to the throat. The blood-colored sky was eternally dim, devoid of sun, moon, or stars; only a massive Demonic Energy core emitting an ominous dark red glow illuminated the entire layer like a giant, uncoagulated scab.
This was the domain of the "The Flame-Melting King."
A massive throne carved from a single block of obsidian stood in the center of a boiling sea of magma. Upon the throne, a colossal demonic shadow over fifty meters tall shifted its body irritably. Every inadvertent movement caused spiderweb-like cracks to burst across the hard obsidian surface.
He was the The Flame-Melting King.
A pair of eyes burning with pure flame stared fixedly at a shimmering coordinate in the Void Realm. That coordinate represented the greatest humiliation of his life.
"That damned bug deity..."
The The Flame-Melting King's voice sounded like countless stones grinding together, every word carrying enough fury to ignite sulfur. His clenched fist even created slight ripples in space.
To seek revenge, he had paid an unimaginable price.
He had crawled at the feet of the ruler of a higher plane, the "Abyssal Tyrant," offering half of his territory and all production for the next five hundred years. All of this was merely to trade for a powerful army sufficient to crush that nascent divine domain.
A crushing defeat had completely woken him up. Relying solely on the demons under his command, he was no longer able to defeat that bizarre enemy.
"This time, I will personally tear his bones out one by one and use them as toothpicks!"
His roar kicked up rolling heat waves, causing the magma sea below to boil.
"How is the assembly of the allied forces progressing?"
Below the throne, a hunched succubus adjutant crawled humbly. The scalding ground made her skin sizzle, yet she did not dare to move an inch.
"Reporting to the Great Master, everything is ready."
Her voice was full of flattery.
"The three Bronze Demigods bestowed by the Tyrant Your Majesty have already integrated their legions."
"One hundred thousand muscle-bound Berserker Demons born only for slaughter."
"Fifty thousand Succubus Warlocks capable of warping reality and summoning meteors."
"All war sacrifices have been completed, the spatial beacon is locked, and the rift to that lowly divine domain can be torn open at any time to send your fury..."
The adjutant's words came to an abrupt halt.
Her voice caught in her throat, unable to utter another syllable.
It wasn't that she wanted to stop, but a fear originating from the deepest part of her life gripped her vocal cords.
It wasn't just her.
Every demon in the entire Molten Land, whether a powerful Warlord or a lowly Imp, looked up simultaneously at this moment.
Crack!
A crisp, eerily sharp cracking sound didn't come from any direction but rang directly in the depths of every creature's Soul.
Above the eternal blood-colored sky, atop that massive Demonic Energy core, a crack opened without warning.
A pure, bottomless, pitch-black rift.
It wasn't the kind the demons were familiar with, with chaotic energy burning at the edges.
It was more as if the "object" that was the sky had been snapped in two by an incomprehensible, great power.
"What's happening?"
The The Flame-Melting King stood up abruptly from his throne, the flames in his eyes flickering violently.
"Is the spatial beacon malfunctioning? Has the coordinate opened in reverse?"
This was the only explanation he could think of.
The next second.
Every demon, from the high-and-mighty The Flame-Melting King to the million-strong army assembled on the ground, personally experienced an ancient phrase.
The sky had fallen.
The bow of a giant ship squeezed out from that pitch-black rift, slowly and with a posture that crushed all physical Laws.
It wasn't a teleportation; it was an advent.
It was a higher-dimensional existence forcibly tearing the lower-dimensional "drawing paper" and stuffing its own body inside.
The spatial barriers wailed, letting out overburdened groans. Countless tiny spatial fragments peeled off and flew like glass, then annihilated into pure energy in mid-air.
The giant ship was black.
A pitch-blackness that defied description and swallowed all light. Its hull was covered in a strange biological carapace, crisscrossed with eerie purple energy circuits that throbbed like living things. Every pulse of light and shadow made the demons below feel as if their hearts were being gripped by an invisible giant hand.
It was too big.
So large that it completely exceeded the cognitive limits of the creatures on this plane.
When only half of that massive hull had squeezed through, the shadow it cast had already completely enveloped the allied demon camp for a hundred miles around.
The scorching lava world was, at this moment, swallowed by a cold darkness.
Light vanished.
The temperature plummeted.
The thick sulfurous scent in the air was crudely replaced by a cold, deathly smell like that of the starry Void Realm.
"What... what kind of... monster is that?"
At the front of the allied forces, a Bronze Demigod from the Abyssal Tyrant's command, a hundred-meter-tall Balrog covered in bone spurs, stared blankly at the sky.
Its hundred-meter demonic body it took pride in, its power sufficient to level mountains in one strike, its giant whip burning with the fires of Hell—all seemed utterly ridiculous in its current vision.
It couldn't even see the full extent of the giant ship.
Its retinas, its perception, its everything was filled by that boundless black hull still constantly "squeezing" out of the rift.
It wasn't an ant.
It was a speck of dust.
And in the sky was a boundless continent pressing down.
Hum—
A low resonance, neither metallic nor stone-like, spread throughout the entire plane.
On the belly of the giant ship that obscured the sky, thousands of circular cannon ports slowly lit up with a ghostly blue light at the same time.
That light was cold and deathly, without a hint of energetic violence, yet it contained an order that could end everything.
It was completely out of place with the fanaticism, chaos, and heat of the Abyss.
It made every demon feel a chill surging from deep within their genes and from their very Soul Origin. This was the most primitive shudder of a lower life form facing a higher natural predator.
The The Flame-Melting King froze in place, the fire in his eyes long extinguished, leaving only endless shock and... bewilderment.
He had prepared everything.
Armies, tactics, allies, the fire of revenge.
He had envisioned countless possibilities for the war: bloody wars of attrition, tragic duels between deities, insidious backstabbings.
But he had never imagined this one.
This wasn't a war at all.
This was a cold, emotionless, programmed... purging of lower-tier natives by a higher civilization.
Just then, a cold voice, like the clinking of crystals, echoed in the mind of every demon through some incomprehensible divine amplification.
In that voice was a condescending, almost cruel mockery.
"Demons, the Dominator sends his regards."
The thoughts of all demons completely solidified at this moment.
Dominator?
That bug deity?
Shouldn't he be in his own divine domain, shivering as he waited for the arrival of their great army?
How could he...
That cold voice gave them no time to think; it spoke the final sentence in a tone that declared a truth.
"And, he's sending you on your way."
Boom!!!
The moment the words fell, the first volley of fire descended.