Through The Abyss
With the threat of Fiora’s aura, Richard’s ship passed through the layer without obstructions. They finally reached a passage after five days of flight, and the wasps formed up in line as they entered the next layer of the abyss.
There wasn’t much of a visual change in the place, but Richard distinctly felt a vast difference in the flow of laws here. He immediately realised this was one of those layers which had an archlord, and finding the direction to the nearest passage he had his army march quickly.
“How long until we can determine where we are?” Greyhawk asked as they set out.
Richard looked at the coordinates he had, “Two more layers, hopefully. So… maybe a week each?”
“Great! I’ll catch a few demons to study. Have the army move on, I’ll return to you in three days.”
With everything remaining the same, the wasps continued to fly along. It was only as they were almost at the passage to the next layer that they were met with a crimson tide of demons— the army of this layer’s archlord. Even though the archlord wasn’t in the army itself, they refused to retreat in the face of Fiora’s power. Richard’s own aura could scatter them, but flaring it would be an open challenge to the archlord that would be interpreted as a declaration of war.
Examining the situation, Richard decided to plough through as quickly as he could. The wasps landed together a little before the enemy, and countless night elves jumped off and entered formation to go up against the incoming legion. As the transporters floated back into the sky, Richard flew forward and made a quick assessment of their military force.
A random army meant to guard the interlayer passage had over a million demons within! Only a tenth of them were a significant opponent at all, but there were nearly a thousand greater demons and two lesser lords!
He turned to Greyhawk and pointed at the latter, “Should I kill them?”
The mage shook his head, “It’s best not to, or things will get quite troublesome when we return. We might end up going to war.”
“Then I’ll beat them half-dead. Tiramisu, Waterflower.”
The ogre lord who looked like a small hill roared thunderously in response, speeding up as he charged straight towards one of the lesser lords as Waterflower disappeared from sight. While he was only ten metres tall compared to some greater demons that were fifteen, any that made contact with him were sent flying away as he carved a bloody path amidst the sea of red. His thirty-metre-tall opponent screeched and rushed forward as well, killing its own kin to take on the challenge.
The earth shook as ogre and demon crashed, both creatures sinking down into a crater as everything within a hundred metres was blown away. Richard sighed while Greyhawk shook his head at the brutality of it all, but the demons all around cheered on at the contest of strength.
As the demon lord regained its senses, it punched Medium Rare so hard that his eye rolled back. However, the ogre simply took two steps back and stabilised himself, Tiramisu jumping up and landing a vicious kick that crippled the demon’s knee. The ogre leapt up from the contact, grabbing his hammer off his back and smashing it into the back of the head. However, the demon simply raised one of its hands and pulled the ogre back down into the pit.
Squelches rang out from the crater as flesh was torn apart all over, the contest turning into a brutal one without any of the experience that legendary beings should possess. However, the cracks in space that rippled out made it obvious that things weren’t as straightforward as they seemed. Some of the greater demons that were fervent enough to approach were blown into bits once they were close to the edge of the pit.
The demon lord on the other end of the battlefield roared in jealousy at the battle, but tasked with controlling the army he fought his urges and continued his role. However, his shouts suddenly turned into a cry of misery as a black ring of light formed around his neck, the skin tearing open to form a waterfall of blood.
Waterflower appeared behind him, pouting as she stared at her sword and flashed away. The demon had realised a brief moment prior to her attack, and that made things much more difficult. Dozens of black streaks flickered all over the demon’s body as she left, cutting into the limbs to reduce mobility.
However, that wasn’t the end of the surprises. The demon lord suddenly roared out loud, forming clouds of fire in the air that sent flaming rocks crashing down towards the earth. The woman tried to move as quickly as possible, but the aftershocks of the impact still caught her and sent her flying hundreds of metres away. A trail of blood followed her path.
By the time the meteor storm passed, everything within a kilometre had been wiped clean. Hundreds of thousands of demons were turned to ash, leaving only the collapsed lord on the ground. That summoning had hurt Waterflower, but it had also damaged him greatly. Almost his entire lower half was gone.
As the explosions of the meteors died down, the battlefield was suddenly overwhelmed by thunderous booms that drowned out all other noise. The night elves had been sending wave after wave of arrows into the demons all this while, but now that they were close enough they had pulled out their thunder cannons and fired thousands at a time.
Tens of thousands of demons were shattered with every volley, and the night elves constantly rotated out to keep the cannons roaring. The entire tide had been split in half in only five rounds, allowing the elves to rush towards the passage in the distance.
In the meanwhile, Tiramisu crawled out of the deep pit. He was wounded all over and Medium Rare’s eye was so swollen that it couldn’t even open, but the demon lord was nowhere to be seen. The ogre spat some blood and saliva behind him before ambling along, catching up to Richard’s army. He grinned as Waterflower flashed onto his shoulder and leaned into him, steadying his gait as he rushed through.
The demon army was left in complete chaos. Without the two lesser lords, they had started fighting amongst themselves. Another force appeared on the horizon within hours, the three lords accompanying it rushing to the passage, but the last of the wasps had already disappeared by this point. What they came across instead was a dark gate that was floating in mid-air, emanating a sense of danger that terrified the strongest of them all.
The three lords halted their footsteps, sensing the darkness behind the gate, but before they could destroy it thousands of nightmare creatures flooded out from within. An intense war erupted in moments.
……
Richard’s army was advancing quickly through the abyss, already having gone up against two legions in the current layer. While he had his reservations against the archlord here, four lesser lords had followed him long enough to annoy him into killing them. They were now offerings in his treasury, which was why the archlord eventually sent three more legions after him. This prompted another portal for the Legion of Nightmares to pass through, a goodbye present he had now grown accustomed to sending out.
Thus, they finally passed through their third abyssal layer, giving him enough information to ascertain just where he was. Looking at the glowing specks of light all over his map, he touched the nearest point and calculated the direction. He then pointed off to the side, “That way.”
“Are you sure?” Having made his own calculations to find the nearest passage, Greyhawk was rather taken aback. While every layer had multiple passages in and out, he couldn’t even find a trace of one being in that direction. “If we go that deep,.we might end up facing an archlord. Are you confident in a battle?”
Richard knitted his brows, “When they’re in their natural environment? I’m not certain.”
“Hmm… I have a few items that could help, but they’re only one-time use and the journey will get harder afterwards.”
“Heh. Is there a world in which it won’t? We need to go through 97 layers to get to Arbidis.”
The mage had no response.
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