Persuasion(2)

When Sharon finally appeared, only half of her body moved out of the portal. Both her hands were still stuck on the other side, seemingly lugging a heavy object. It took a burst of force for her to pull it through, revealing a severed pitch-black arm that was more than ten metres long and three metres thick. The arm fell to the blue crystal floor with a heavy thud the moment it came through, sinking deep into the ground. The exposed portion leaked thick, ink-black blood that created a corrosive mist the moment it landed. If it wasn’t for the magical properties of the blue crystals making them resistant to corrosion, a deep hole would have been formed in the ground.

Sharon finally jumped out of the portal, landing on the arm. She waved her own, and a the blood seeping out of the devil’s arm started floating up and converging into a spinning orb that steadily grew larger.

”Looking at the converging blood, the legendary mage sighed. She looked at Gaton, asking helplessly, “Do you want some of this?”

Gaton’s face turned gloomy as he shook his head, “I have no use for it.”

She immediately let out a sigh of relief, stowing the blood somewhere hidden as she spoke up, “Good, it isn’t worth much anyway! Tch, that big fellow ran away and I only managed to get his arm, what a pity. It isn’t enough to make up for the loss with the coordinates. It seems like you came back without much reward as well, little Gaton.”

Gaton let out a long breath, “Being able to kill more than a thousand devils is reward enough. Besides, this will make you credible with the archdevil, and that will be a great way to teach the Schumpeters an unforgettable lesson! If they don’t react quick enough, they may even be destroyed!”

A layer of frost covered Sharon’s tiny face the moment the Schumpeters were brought up, “Hmph, these guys have some nerve, messing with my little Richard! They think I can’t deal with the big families of the Sacred Alliance directly, so they try these little tricks! I’ve been busy getting rich the past few years, spending little time in Norland. It seems like these fellows forgot the lesson I taught them all those years ago! I may be shy to act, but I can always force others to act on my behalf!

“Wait, no way! I lost my little Richard, there’s no way I’m letting them off that easy! I can’t just rely on the devils alone… There’s some people I’m… umm… “familiar” with in the Abyss. Little Gaton, the portal is right there, take your troops back. I have to make a trip to the abyss, I need to visit one of the old fellows there!” The legendary mage grew angrier as she spoke, even brandishing her fist. She ignored the fatigue and injuries, immediately opening a portal and rushing through without pause.

Watching the fire and lava shooting out of the portal, Gaton had a bewildered expression on his face. Sharon’s reaction to Richard being lost in the streams of time was much worse than even his; he was the boy’s father!

……

In the depths of one of the hells was an iron palace that was a few hundred metres tall. It was black in colour, coming from the spit of the many imps who were tasked with building it. The baptism of devil spit made the metal resistant to the corrosive atmosphere of hell, making it extremely valuable in other planes. Even a small piece of this metal could fetch a sky high price in other planes; something that could resist hell’s corrosion was virtually indestructible almost everywhere else.

Thousands of devil soldiers were gathered at the plaza in front of the palace. Their bodies were naturally strong, comparable to the armour mankind used in battle.

They were all armed with different weapons. The hells were rich in various ores, and the craftsmanship of these weapons was not inferior to those made by dwarves. Even though these soldiers’ weapons were not enriched with magic, the innate quality of the metal made them quite effective, also giving them many other attributes. There were all kinds of arms here— pikes, axes, jagged swords, javelins, even bows. The army was nearly ten thousand strong, the various branches divided meticulously. Just looking at the precision of their military formations would let one know this troop was a formidable opponent.

Coordinating in a formation could greatly raise the power of even ordinary humans who had limited bodily strength, so what was one to say about the devils whose bodies were naturally much stronger?

At that very moment, a dark fog was churning in the overcast sky, and an extremely large devil fell from up above. The lower half of his body resembled that of a large dragon, his upper half shaped like that of a human. The devil had a solemn expression; ignoring the colour of his skin and the fine sharp horns on his head, he would be considered cold and handsome from a human perspective. However, his body was currently littered with scars, some even a few metres long and a metre deep. These wounds refused to heal, abyssal flames continuously burning on the wounds. One of his six arms had also been ripped out at the root, its whereabouts unknown.

The devil landed at the plaza, starting to make his way towards the palace. The entrance was tens of metres tall, but it seemed stuffy when he stood in front of it. He had to bow his head to walk through the doors.

Right past the entrance was the main hall of the palace. The place was large, more than a kilometre wide and a hundred metres tall. A throne lay at the end, with a row of strange devils standing at each side. A devil who himself was no more than four metres tall was sat on the throne, holding his lower jaw and seeming deep in thought. Based on size alone the smallest of his subordinates was three to four times larger, but everyone remained silent without the guts to interrupt his train of thought.

This was the ruler of this layer of hell, Archdevil Abaddon.

The large devil who had lost an arm stood at the centre of the hall, kneeling down on his four legs as he spoke up solemnly, “Forgive me, my Lord, I am useless. We could not defeat the enemies, our troops suffered absolute defeat!”

The lower-ranking leaders in the palace were shocked. Cardis was a powerful general in Abaddon’s army, in charge of one of the army’s two most powerful legions. On top of that, his own battle capabilities put him in the top three of Abaddon’s subordinates. There had been less than fifty invaders, and yet he had returned in abject defeat. His legion had been wiped out, and he had lost an arm. If the humans had gone all out and chased him, he may not even have been able to escape.

Of course, if the invaders dared step foot into the palace they would be courting death. Everyone here thought the same way.

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