The Record of Unusual Creatures - Chapter 425

Chapter 425: A New Target

 

When the news was just posted on the wall, the people around it did not seem to notice anything special. They just thought it was a regular report about recent ecology in the Demonic Plane, just like the previous one. But soon, there was a commotion from the crowd, and they finally realised what was actually written on the piece of paper!

Hao Ren heard some people muttering behind him, “Helcrown? Wasn’t the Helcrown already torn apart by the spatial storm?”

“The remnants of the demon king’s defeated troops should no longer be there… How come there’s a new troop appearing all of a sudden?”

“Could it be false?”

“I heard that the Helcrown just fell into the spatial rift, but no one really saw it being torn apart …”

“The news is not necessarily true. It is just suspected…”

The tumult in the crowd grew louder, and the discussion soon turned into loud noise. There were more and more people gathered in front of the wall. This attracted those mercenaries, who were exchanging information and tasks. At this moment, another soldier stepped forward. Someone immediately grabbed the soldier and asked, “Is the news true?”

“I just came to post the news,” the soldier shrugged and said, “anyway, this is a message from the top.”

The soldier then put up new intel on the wall, which also comprised of a few short sentences. “Someone has witnessed the remnants of demon king’s defeated troops in the second plane. They are suspected to be the surviving soldiers of the First Legion. The demon king of the second plane, Banuklaak, has left his castle, leading a group of unknown elite troops to the Broken Plains. They are most likely investigating the mirage of the Helcrown.”

All of a sudden the situation burst into a state of chaos. In all directions, people kept crying out in alarm and making a ruckus. The people on the first floor of the hall heard it. All came and gathered there. Those who could not squeeze in were shouting outside and asking what was going on. So, news regarding the mirage of the Helcrown and the remnants of the demon king’s defeated troops were spread throughout the hall quickly. And soon, another soldier came out of the little door next to the wall. He put the latest information on the wall and covered the message earlier. “Correction, the demon king, Banuklaak, has returned to his castle urgently. There is sgn of mass movements within the demon legion of the second plane. It is suspected that they are preparing to start a war with other demons. Demon King Serathon suddenly withdrew some of his forces near the Obsidian Plains. They could be transferred to the second plane. The presence of the remnants of the demon king’s defeated troops is confirmed.”

A tense, repressed, fearful but faintly high-spirited emotion pervaded the hall. Hao Ren and the rest of them were waiting to see if there were anymore news updates. Suddenly, a middle-aged man dressed in mercenary clothing squeezed in. He held a piece of paper with a special stamp of the distribution hall and proceeded to paste it on the wall. “The strength of the Steel Mercenary Group has been entrusted with the investigation of the second plane and is recruiting foreign aid!”

This middle-aged mercenary’s thread immediately led to more mercenaries putting up their notice. Some announced that they had gathered the relevant information; some were recruiting teammates to venture into the Demonic Plane, and some claimed that they went to the Demonic Plane in a few days and found the relevant information. There was one who said, “I have a lot of money to spend and I just want to occupy a spot here”—of course, this man did not have a good ending…

Hao Ren was stunned to see the scene. There were at least 100 related notices covering half of the wall following news of the demon king’s legion. The crowd started a new discussion thread on the wall beside it to continue their talks on the news. The soldier who previously posted the notices was shocked when he came out to check the situation. He did not expect to see such overwhelming responses.

At the desk near the wall, a little elf girl with pointy ears was shouting. “Keep the order everybody! Come and get special papers as well as posting space! Please, pay for the post! Thank you for your cooperation!”

“I have to find a way to squeeze out of here…” Hao Ren could barely breathe amongst the crowd hence, that was the only thought in his mind. He kept shouting “excuse me”, but it still did not work until Y’zaks shook his arms and opened a way in front of them. He then carried Hao Ren and strode out of the crowd.

As soon as Hao Ren got out of the crowd, he saw Vivian and Lanina already waiting outside. Nangong Wuyue slipped out of the crowd like a slippery fish. While he was tidying up his clothes, he looked at Vivian and said, “Why didn’t you call me when you came out?”

“I didn’t know you would be so silly. You should have quickly left the place when you saw the new notice.” Vivian curled her lips, then looked around and asked, “Aiya, where’s Lily?”

Hao Ren just realized that Lily was not with him. He slapped his head and said, “Oh, gosh! She must still be in the crowd! She will surely go mad if people keep stepping on her tail!”

He then turned back to the crowd, looking for the husky, but he could not find her. When he squeezed out of the crowd from the other side, he finally saw Lily. She was actually curled up, asleep by the big vase in the corner. It was not certain how long she had been sleeping there…

Vivian was shocked to see this and asked, “Has her biological clock stopped working?”

“I suspect her body is still following the biological clock on Earth,” Hao Ren said. He pulled Lily up and kept shaking her until she woke up. Then, he waved his hand in front of her and asked, “What time is it now?”

Lily said hello to Hao Ren, still half asleep. She then rubbed her belly and said, “Time to eat…”

Hao Ren sighed and said, “She totally hasn’t gotten over her jet lag yet.”

“Every hour is her mealtime, and she’s hungry whenever she has nothing to do.” Vivian slapped Lily on the back of the head and said, “You can’t even pick the right place to sleep, and you still blame people for stepping on your tail.”

“Y’zaks, what do you think of today’s hot news?” Nangong Wuyue splashed cold water on Lily’s face to help her freshen up while she turned to look at Y’zaks.

“Whether it’s true or not, I have to go to the second plane to see the situation,” said Y’zaks. His eyes were shining and there was a kind of brilliance on his face. “Just now, someone mentioned something. When the Helcrown was engulfed by the spatial rift, no one saw it being torn apart… Does this mean that the city was just being drawn into a new plane, and the people in it are actually still alive?!”

Hao Ren opened his mouth and looked at Y’zaks, knowing that a sort of hope had lit up again in his heart. He wanted to advise Y’zaks not to make any conclusions prematurely, but he ended up nodding his head and saying, “Well, we’ll go with you.”

Lanina’s tail was wagging fast in the air, which seemed to be a habit when she was thinking about a question. “The remnants of the demon king’s defeated troops… The First Legion was indeed the main force in the city. If the king is really still there, then the surviving soldiers could probably belong to the First Legion. But, according to the information, the Helcrown that appeared in the sky of the Broken Plains was a mirage… This is a bit strange. Was the Helcrown mutated after it fell into the spatial rift?”

“We can only go and see the situation there.” Y’zaks nodded and continued, “Go to the second plane… But, I’m afraid that the Broken Plains have been occupied by other demons. The current ruler of the second plane is Banuklaak. However, according to the information we’ve just seen, Banuklaak has been weakened and Serathon is very likely going to meddle. If we go there hastily, we will meet the demonic allied forces of Serathon and Banuklaak.”

“We can take advantage of the allied forces of the Holy See.” Hao Ren thought for a bit and made a decision. “There are all kinds of people among the mercenaries. The allied forces have little doubt about the human race. We can go straight in.”

Y’zaks nodded and said, “Yes, and we only get into the periphery, so we’ll likely be sent directly to the forefront as ‘minesweepers’, just the way we intended.”

“I’ll go ask about the registration process and see how I can get a fake identity.” Vivian volunteered. She had been in the human world for tens of thousands of years without being exposed. Sometimes she could still keep up with the times after she had been sleeping for 200 or 300 years. This lady was a master of disguise.

A vampire who dared to work for a church in the Vatican, there was no place she could not go…

Lanina also patted her chest and said, “I’ll go help her. I’m familiar with all kinds of people in the human world.”

Nangong Wuyue patted Hao Ren on the shoulder and said, “You should also go with them.”

Hao Ren was puzzled and asked, “What do I do there? I don’t know any spying skills…”

“Aren’t you pretending to be a wizard?” Wuyue rolled her eyes and said, “You are Lanina’s camouflage.”

Hao Ren twitched his mouth and thought about how he ended up becoming someone else’s binding equipment again. His experience was always different from that of a normal person, every single time…

Chapter 426: The Second Plane

 

Actually, Hao Ren was wondering if it was appropriate for the allied forces to openly put up information of the demon king’s legion outside. According to Y’zaks’s popularity over the past hundreds of years, any news related to the demon king’s legion would at least cause a social upheaval. However, the allied forces did not seem to care about it.

But then Lanina explained to Hao Ren, and he understood what was going on.

The Ten-Year War was just over. Before that, the Demon Empire reigned for hundreds of years. The whole world had yet to break free from some kind of “force”. The news of the demon king’s legion may have caused a short period of commotion, but it no longer led to any panic…

Because, the generations who would panic about it were already dead.

It did not matter if the war was right or wrong, and if it involved Y’zaks or the seven heroes, one of them having a nobler ambition. It was undeniable that after the 400-year demon invasion plus a decade of war, all races across the world for more than a generation had died, including the elves. Now, the surviving ones were almost numb, both demons and mortals.

Three days later, a motley team of mercenaries and adventurers set out from Cadeceus to the second Demonic Plane through the transit point.

All the teleportation portals leading to the Demonic Plane were strictly monitored, and ever since the defeat of the demon king’s legion, Cadeceus, the largest “world transfer station” had sealed off all teleportation portals to the Demonic Plane (which was, of course, only limited to the portals known to humans. The one that Y’zaks left behind hundreds of years ago was apparently not included). So, the mercenaries assembled there would go with the allied forces to the demon world from other neighbouring planes.

Hao Ren and the rest of the team were mingled together in the queue. They successfully passed the censorship system, which was not strict at all, using the status of a temporarily registered mercenary group. Of course, you could not blame them. These people were going to risk their lives. There was nothing much to be examined. Those who dared to follow the Holy See and the seven heroes to fight with the demons were either saints or madmen. These two kinds of people obviously had nothing much to be examined.

Normal people absolutely would not have expected the demon king himself to take advantage of this opportunity to sneak back into his hometown: completely playing against the rules…

After leaving Cadeceus, they were teleported to an empty desert, the only continent in the entire space: this place was called the “Mendocain”, which meant “barren land” in the Beastmen language.

They wore low-key capes made of coarse cloth and mixed themselves among the other mercenaries. They were listening to a man with a scar on his face as he was giving them an introduction of the desert. “Four hundred years ago, the Mendocain was a colony of beastmen. It’s said that there were many oases here. The beastmen built a city as well as dozens of towns in the desert, and the whole plane depended on the iron ore trade for sustenance. But later, all the beastmen of Mendocain were looted by the demon king’s legion, and this place became completely deserted. No one ever rebuilt it. After the end of the Ten-Year War, the seven heroes called on the tribes to block all the teleportation portal in all the main planes and allowed the great warlocks to build replacement portals in more desolate places. Then, Mendocain became useful again.”

“There is a large teleportation portal in the middle of the desert, leading to the second Demonic Plane. On the other side of the portal is the sentinel point set up by the allied forces. We’re setting our foot in hell. I wonder how many people will stay in that hellhole this time,” said another tall skinny man with a headscarf wrapped around his head.

Another mercenary immediately grumbled, “Can’t you say something nice?”

Hao Ren chatted perfunctorily with these weird mercenaries, then went back to Y’zaks and asked, “Did you really sweep away all the population of the plane?”

“Four hundred years ago, the Mendocain was actually the place where the beastmen exiled their compatriots. The so-called city was a huge slum. Countless beastmen were left in this barren land to die. I took them away to mine the obsidian for me. Although it was hard work, at least they had food to eat working for me,” Y’zaks shrugged and continued, “The world is defending the beastmen, but in actual fact, those beastmen were the most loyal group of people I have governed.”

Hao Ren looked into the distance and saw a huge, greyish-yellow pillar going straight into the sky at the end of the desert. “What is that thing?”

“The Mendocain pillar. It sustains the land under our feet. According to beastmen legend, once this pillar breaks, the entire Mendocain continent will fall into the dark sun. They believed that there’s a dark sun at the back of the continent beneath them, and they vied for dominion over the continent with the never-falling sun in the sky,” Y’zaks explained and smiled. “There is no night in this space. The whole continent maintains a never-ending polar day. The sun moves along a curve in the sky and has not set for tens of thousands of years. In fact, the beastmen’s legend is somewhat valid, because there is indeed a brown dwarf star at the back of the Mendocain continent. The brown dwarf star will never rise to the horizon because of the gravitational lock. Only those who venture to the edge of the continent can see it. By chance, the gleams of the brown dwarf star form an endless abyss.”

“Ooooohhhhhh…” Lily exclaimed. In actuality, as an idiot when it came to Science, she did not understand what Y’zaks was talking about. All she knew was the continent under her feet was sandwiched between two suns. She looked in amazement at the greyish-yellow pillar at the end of the horizon and asked, “So, that thing really sustains the whole continent? It extends from the sun beneath the earth’?”

“It’s just an unreliable legend,” Y’zaks explained. “In fact, it’s merely a sandstorm, but I don’t know what’s going on… It hasn’t stopped for more than 800 years. It’s a dangerous place around the Mendocain pillar. We probably won’t be going there.”

Y’zaks was right. The man-made teleportation portal was not far from them, and it was a safe distance from the Mendocain pillar. They soon arrived somewhere near the ruins of a city buried by sand. According to the architectural style of the city ruins, it was apparently the home of those beastmen who were exiled many years ago. Now, the ancient city was left abandoned, with only remnants of broken bricks and walls. The Holy See’s allied forces set up a small market town near the ruins of the city as a stronghold to control and maintain the man-made teleportation portal.

The teleportation portal was a dark red vortex with a radius of more than 10 metres. It lay slanted in a strange way in the desert, with an angle of about 30° from the ground. It looked like the surface of a sundial. Around the portal, there was a set of binding devices made with dark red runestones. These runestones floated in the air, and a fiery oppressive vibe came from the Demonic Plane.

The soldiers, who were on guard in front of the teleportation portal verified the identities of the mercenaries and the officer in charge of the team. Then they ordered for the portal to be activated.

Soon after, the dark red vortex, which lay slanted in the desert was suddenly activated. The whole door stood upright. The scene in the vortex was twisting, and then, they saw the red sky and the barren land of the Demonic Plane.

Hao Ren followed the team, stepping into the gate. Y’zaks whispered as he crossed the portal, “I hope the news is true…”

The sight changed. Hao Ren felt the smell of the desert suddenly fading, afterwhich he began to smell the unique, ubiquitous flavour of sulphur in the Demonic Plane.

The scene before them was of a dark red sky, the black and red barren land stretching out.

Nangong Wuyue put her hands on her hips, looked at the unique landscape of the Demonic Plane in high spirits and said, “It’s time to stick my tongue out again!”

“You don’t have to,” Hao Ren said and threw her a collar. “I forgot about this… Actually, you can put on this life support device to adapt to the environment.”

Wuyue looked at the collar in a daze. She later stomped her feet and asked, “Why didn’t you think of this before?”

Hao Ren sighed and said, “Because of the limitations of my thinking. This stuff is designed to carry out space missions… And honestly, only you can’t adapt to the environment completely. We don’t need it at all. And I was reminded that I could give you this only after I saw Wang giving that little girl named Vanessa a talisman…”

Nangong Wuyue was holding the collar with mixed feelings. She was determined to take good care of herself in the future: She could not rely on this guy.

Like other mercenaries, Lily was looking at her surroundings curiously: this place was one of the many strongholds established by the Holy See’s allied forces in the Demonic Plane and the second largest human base. It was built on easily guarded high ground with a gentle downward slope ahead.

The entire stronghold was not too large. There were human-style barracks and towers in sight.

Back then, Y’zaks controlled all the Demonic Planes, suppressing other demon kings. But after the end of the Ten-Year War, the Holy See’s allied forces had opened up the outpost to every Demonic Plane with the help of their strength, and also by taking advantage of the demon kings’ incapability.

Although it took a great deal of effort to maintain these positions, nearly a year later, these strongholds inserted under the demon kings’ noses still persisted. It was not that those demon kings could not pull out these strongholds, but the allied forces tried to create a balance. The battles between the demon kings, the growing power of the Holy See’s allied forces; these two factors kept the strongholds up until the present.

However, just as Hao Ren thought they could get through the day safely, they suddenly heard a noise coming from afar.

The noise soon started to have an effect on them and Hao Ren finally figured out what had happened.

A troop of the Holy See’s forces was fighting the demons of Banuklaak in the Broken Plains!

Chapter 427: It’s Real!

 

Before Hao Ren and the rest could settle down in the barracks, news of fierce fighting in the front line was reported. The commander of the sentry post decided to send part of the reinforcement which had just arrived to the front line. Hao Ren didn’t want to miss the opportunity to go to the Broken Plains. He was thinking of how to make their presence felt but he didn’t have to, as Y’zaks had already attracted all the attenion—the officer who was tasked to register mercenaries had all the while only remembered one name—Wang Daquan, the tarzan.

A team consisiting of mercenaries and regular knights was assembled. They followed two officers heading towards the Broken Plains. Riding on the back of mutated horses of demonic dimension, they left the barracks and were expected to reach the battlefield in no time.

The Broken Plains were not that far from the barracks.

The ten-year war had affected the human world in many aspects. One of them was the impact on mercenaries—the loosely organised armed groups had been brought together by the war; those who were not brave, not determined, and not disciplined enough were filtered out; those who made it became an important complementary force to the Allied Army. They remained an irregular force, but their overall quality had risen to the level of professional soldiers, and could be brought together at any time by the call of the Seven Heroes and the church to form a formidable force.

The flexibility, experience and cunningness of the mercenaries had earned them a place in the ten-year war, and even several war heroes were mercenaries. So the mercenaries mustn’t be underestimated as they had even given Y’aks headache back then.

The mercenary had become a ‘special response force’ recognised by the Allied Army. Both sides had established a combat-tested cooperational model which was why when the news of the remnants of the demonic army broke, a large group of mercenaries were added to the Allied Army without even needing a run-in adaptation to formally join the mission—just like the mercenaries behind Hao Ren, they were all experts.

“Disperse immediately when come into contact with the demons and kill them one by one.” Naturally, a veteran mercenary would become the ad-hoc commander. He ran in front of the group but his voice could be heard by the entire convoy. “This is the territory of the demons, so do not engage for too long. Use hit-and-run tactics, and merge with the group immediately and follow the regular forces to start a next wave of attacks, pay attention to safety, as we’re in an ad-hoc team, it’s hard to achieve precise cooperation and so there’s little chance of mutual assistance.”

Over in the regular force, an officer briefed his soldiers for the next course of action. They seemed to be experienced warriors who had fought with the demons for years. They were all professionals.

“It feels weird.” Y’zaks said as he rode on the back of an extra-large mutated horse which resembled a calf. He lamented when he heard the officer giving the mission brief. ”

Hao Ren already knew what was on Y’zaks’ mind: those soldiers had done the same thing before they overthrew his demonic army…

Y’zaks smiled and that said a lot about Y’zaks’ broadmindedness.

An officer in front of the convoy suddenly shouted. “Watch out! Demons are right ahead!”

Hao Ren looked up and found a group of demons appeared ahead. The mercenaries and the regular knights instantly entered into a state of war. The veteran soldiers quickly split and prepared to engage the demons—they had learned the experience after sacrificing countless lives battling the demons. The only way to fight the demons, which were many times stronger than humans, was to use hit-and-tun tactics. Those guys who fought head-on with the demons had proven one thing with their lives: it was impossible to defeat the mighty demonic army even if you had got a bigger number of soldiers.

“Those could be the remnants of demonic army from the Broken Plains.” Lanina glanced from afar and said. “Let’s capture and interrogate.”

Hao Ren had also noticed the state of those demonic soldiers: they were disorganised, most were wounded, rough skin with a single-horn. Undoubtedly these demons had just come back from the battlefield in the Broken Plains.

As soon as they human convoy saw the demons, the demons had also spotted the human convoy. They could sense trouble ahead but these blood-thirsty creatures weren’t known to back out from a fight. They wielded their weapons and lunged forward immediately!

The knights of the Allied Army lunged out first. A white-gold divine glory covered their bodies as they penetrated and broke the enemy’s formation relying solely in their sheer courage and the protection of their body armours. Then the mercenaries immediately isolated each demon and killed them on by one before they could even regroup.

The shouting, and the magic blast, the weapons hitting one another were everywhere. Hao Ren and his team deliberately ran deeper into the battlefield and found two lone higher demons.

They dismounted before engaging the demons. They knew fully well that their combat skill on horseback wasn’t going to cut it.

“Human… kill them all!” The demon guard discovered the man who lunged toward it was a thin man wearing a warlock robe and felt provoked. It roared and raised its one-foot-wide huge sword and chopped down at Hao Ren’s head. Hao Ren’s mouth twisted slight as he raised his hands to catch the giant sword. Then a loud bang ensued, the giant sword was stopped by his face.

Vivian’s jaw almost dropped to the ground: she had seen many times people catching sword with bare hands, but catching a foot-wide steel plate with bare hands was first. Hao Ren’s hands had managed to clamp the sword between his palms but that didn’t stop the huge sword from hitting his face. And mind you, that sword was a foot wide!

The demon was shocked. “That’s a tough face!”

Lily saw it. She felt that her landlord had finally showed his true colour as a main tank. Though his face mightn’t be an offensive weapon, it was a good defensive one.

Hao Ren woke up from his dizziness and suddenly felt he needed to regain the initiative. He took out his long spear and thrusted at the enemy. “Eat this!”

Wielding a huge sword in a hand-to-hand combat was impractical, the demon had no choice but grabbed the strange spear with its bare hand. He was dumbfounded as the warlock had not just a tough face but also a metal stick which didn’t look like a wand at all…

Hao Ren didn’t care what the demon was thinking. He let out an evil smile and twisted the handle of his spear.

“Now eat the ionised saber!”

A strong white light emanated from the tip of the spear head and a two-metre dazzaling flame burst out. The demon had sensed the danger but it was too late. At the blink of an eye, its arm was cut in half!

True to be a demon, the three-metre-tall enemy slammed its sword at Hao Ren again despite losing an arm.

At white figure sprang up from the side—it was Lily. She grabbed the arm of the demon and ripped it apart.

The demon was just an ordinary soldier after all. Even if it was an elite force, that was the end of its combat ability.

In the other hand, Y’zaks had finished off his opponents easily. The two captured demons were thrown to one side. Lanina stared into their eyes and said, “Tell me, what’s the situation in the Broken Plains? Have you seen the demon king’s army?”

The two demons fiercely resisted her psychic attack, Lanina who hadn’t really practiced her psychic skill had hard time taking control of their mind. Hao Ren noticed the situation and quickly grabbed two pieces of rag and cover the demons’ faces, revealing only their eyes. Without seeing their faces, Lanina could now use her skill more effectively…

The two demons were under control but shivered when they recalled the terrifying moments. They confessed. “The Broken Plains… the demon king’s army…””The dark dwarfs came out suddenly and killed the humans and the demons…””The mad demon king is alive…”

“Wait a second!” Hao Ren was shocked. “What did you say?”

“The mad demon king is still alive…” One of the demons told in fear, the terror was still written on its face. “He has appeared… in the Broken Plains.”

Chapter 428: A City

 

“The mad demon king has appeared in the Broken Plains?” Hao Ren was shocked hearing the unlikely news. “Is this a joke or what? Let me ask you again; are you sure it’s Y’zaks who has appeared in the Broken Plains?”

The two demons shivered when they heared the name ‘Yzaks; there was only one demon in known history and the one capable of striking fear in them.. obviously there sounded serious. “I’ve seen it with my own eyes. He emerged from the fire and was surrounded by the osidian colossi and dark dwarfs…”

“Osidian colossi and dark dwarfs were soldiers of the First Batallion,” Lanina looked back at Hao Ren. “I’m afraid that’s true.”

Hao Ren let Lanina asked a few questions, but the two demons which were mere ordinary soldiers knew nothing more; they hadn’t a clue about whether the army of Banuklaak and Serathon had come to the Broken Plains.

When they finished interrogatiing the two demon guards, Y’zaks pressed his hand directly over their heads, the demons quickly turned into a pile of breeze.

Lily stuck out her tongue and said, “Biggie is really cruel…”

“Why I have the feeling that you’re more motivated in killing the demons than the humans?” Hao Ren said as he looked at Y’zaks.

Y’zaks said, “Humph! Nonsense. Because I despise these bastards more than any races in the human world. The earthlings have been antagonistic toward demons for all this while, beating their brains out seems so natural. But they fought for their family and country, I’ve no qualm even if I lost to them. But Banucklaak and Serathon were bastards who would stab you in the back.”

It was true that Y’zaks was defeated by the Allied Army, but the lethal blow came from his fellow demons. The war between him and races of the human world had always been for the sake of ideology on one hand and country in the other. For that matter, an upright person like Y’zaks would have no complaint even if he died in the war. In fact he respected the Seven Heroes who had led an mortal army against the demon king and fought all the way to the Demonic Plane. Even Y’zaks admitted that these guys were tough.

But compared to the Seven Heroes’ Allied Army, his fellow demonic compatriots were less vitutous: Banuklaak was only submissive to Y’zaks before he backstabbed the demon king’s army during the final battle. Serathon had given Y’zaks a fatal blow and had occupied half of the Seventh Plane since then.

No good tempered person would tolerate such betrayal!

Knowing what the hatred of Y’zaks was, Hao Ren cleverly steered the topic of the conversation. “Well, let’s not talk about them—what you do think of your impersonator in the Broken Plains?”

“I’m sure as hell I don’t have a lost brother.” Y’zaks laughed wryly. “I”m also interested to find out who ‘resurrected’ me.”

As the small demonic convoy had been dealt with, those mercenaries and knights who were injured began to turn back while the rest quickly regrouped and continued their journey towards the Broken Plains.

And they hadn’t been bumping into any more wandering demons since then.

The Broken Plains gradually appeared in the horizon. Hao Ren could see its strange landscape and guess how the Broken Plains got its name.

Cracked earth, trenches and rifts were everywhere. Gravity-defying boulders were floating ten metres to as high as several hundred metres in the air as if a great force had smased the plain into pieces.

“Those are ‘old stones’, a kind of magnetic material. A vortex magnetic field below the surface keeps the boulders afloat. “Y’zaks explained quietly. “How these boulders came about is a mystery. I had sent people investigating and found that the age of the boulders was very different from the geological age of the entire Broken Plains as if he boulders had dropped from the sky. That why the little old man had speculated that the spatial bubble zone wasn’t in its current form but a contagious space, which explained the origin of the formation of ‘asteriod craters’ in different planes.

Suddenly an officer in front of the convoy held the horse and shouted out loudly. “Watch out!”

Hao Ren looked up and saw the Allied Army and the demonic army was figthing not far ahead.

The battle was taking place in a wide open area without without any natural cover. A vast area seemed to have been bombed as pits and craters were left behind by the magic explosions and bullet marks were everywhere. Countless dead bodies of the Allied Army and Banuklaak army, broken armours, weapons and flags strewn all over the place. Blood of the fallen armies had dried by the scorching heat, the air was filled with a turbid, strange smell—the smell of human and demonic blood mixture.

The knight officer commanded. “Team Three, guard the surrounding. Team Four, scout out the rocky hills on the east carefully. The rest, check the battlefield, collect the dead, and take their weapons. We need every weapon we could salvage, they might need them later!”

Hao Ren and his men pretended to be busy like other mercenaries but they were actually examining the dead bodies of the demons and humans—finding out their cause of death.

With just a glance, Lanina knew something was amiss at the scene: though most of the dead appeared to have died from the brutal battle, evidence showed that many of the dead lying on the edge of the battlefield were clearly fleeing the scene and suffering great horror before they were killed. Horror could still be seen on their faces. But comparing to the human, the horror was harder to observe on dead demons as their faces were more rigid.

But upon closer inspection, Lanina could still tell that these demons had also struck by horror before they died.

Both the humans and the demonic soldiers must have been fleeing from a ferocious third force which had appeared during the last battle—the identity of the third force was obvious.

Lanina ripped open a broken piece of armour of a dead body, revealing the scorched wound underneath which was probably the cause of death. The wound was through and through. “It was caused by a rocket-propelled osidian arrow.”

Not far away, Y’zaks found some rock-like residue on a dead demon which had been smashed into patty. “It’s osidian.”

“A typical signature of the First Batallion of demon king’s army.” Lanina sounded serious. “This weapon is unique to us.”

“Looks like some soldiers of the demon king survive.” Hao Ren got to his feet and gazed at the empty Broken Plains. “They have a new king which looks exactly like Y’zaks… but where are they now?”

“They shouldn’t be far away. There is no place to…”

Before Lanina could finish her sentence, a loud noise like the sound of earth crumbling was heard.

Hao Ren looked up and saw a small group of soldiers running back in their direction. These were the recce force they had send out earlier. The leading soldier shouted in fear. “The demon king’s army! Helcrown! Fall back! Fall back!”

 

The soldiers ran back frantically as a dozen dark colossi of seventy-metre-tall came out from behind the rocks. The colossi had the figure of a human, their bodies glittered with green runes which aided to lessen their weight and propelled their movement. The earth trembled as the colossi ran. The single-eyed colossi gave chase as their singe eyes emitted a light and detected the presence of enemies.

Following the colossi were a group of dark-skinned dwarfs covered in strange body armours, and also the demons which were soldiers of Y’zaks!

The earth-shattering noise and the violent shaking of the earth were just the beginning as Hao Ren saw the earth behind the rocky hills was rising slowly.

It was a city!

Chapter 429: The Impersonator Appears?

 

Thunderous roar came in all directions, and the earth was trembling. Black smoke rising from the rocky hills had almost blocked the sky like the end of the world. Amid all these a city was rising.

The osidian-built city had a hundred-yard-tall, sort of black-gold casting wall. The wall had a series of solid vertical lines and on the top of each line had carving of evil dragon head; the city was encircled by six-hundred-sixty-six osidian stepples and each stepple had a huge floating illusory eye reflecting the image of every corner of Demonic Plane; above the osidian city was a massive floating obelisk which emitting a faint red light as it spun, supporting the shielding system of the city.

The black city had risen above the rocky hills and was still rising even if it had reached the height of several hundred metres in the air. It had become a city in the sky sitting on an upside down cone-shaped floating island. On the underside of the floating island were rugged rocks filled with runes glowing with dim light, and web of intertwined pipes which together formed a massive antigravity field keeping the entire city afloat!

Soldiers on the Broken Plains looked up and were all stunned in awe at the city which was supposed to have been buried in the space storm. A mercenary finally screamed in fear after a long while. “It’s Helcrown!”

A loud bang was heard from not afar as the colossi which came out from behind the rocky hills began to attack the knights. Flame was shot out of the eyes of the colossi and burned a ten-metre-radius pit in the ground. The knights were still in awe at Helcrown and totally forgot that the lethal colossi had come under their nose. A few knights were blown away before the rest came to their senses and retreated.

Seeing the knights in chaos, the dark dwarfs behind the colossi saw the knights immediately squatted down and took out a strangely-shaped rectangular parallelepiped weapon from their backs, aimed at the enemies, and pulled the trigger. A rocket-like stuff—must be the so-called rocket-propelled osidian arrow—was fired. The heavily armoured demons behind the dark dwarfs had flanked the convoy to intercept the fleeing enemies.

As brave as the mercenaries and knights were, those with a bit intelligence would be able to figure out that they were no match for the hybrid demonic forces. They decided to retreat. But just when they were about to do it, a sound like a rolling thunder suddenly was heard from the sku. “Since you’re here, why not just stay.”

The voice sounded familiar to Hao Ren. He looked up and was shocked to see a tall figure appeared on the wall of Helcown. It was five-metre tall, body was almost in flame as his skin was flowing with hot lava, and there was a horn on its head—that looked exactly like Y’zaks.

Lanina was dumbfounded. The soldiers almost went hysterical screaming in fear. “The mad demon king is alive!””Fall back! Everyone fall back!””Abandon baggage. Report back to base.””Carly, I think I’m not going to make it back to marry you…””You f**king don’t a girlfriend!””I’m about to die. Couldn’t you just let me say whatever i want?”

Y’zaks suddenly patted on Hao Ren’s shoulder. The two exchanged a look, then Hao Ren nodded and ran toward the demonic soldiers as he shouted. “Brothers, fall back. We’ll hold them back!”

Before Hao Ren knew it, Lily and Vivian had lunged out. Lily had been wolfing down spicy sticks when she saw the colossi earlier, she had garnered enough energy to transform into a giant husky. The brute strength of the husky smashed a colossus into pieces while Vivian summoned a large swarm of bats creating a thundercloud before striking its lightning strike around the dark dwarfs just to create distraction, preventing the dwarfs from aiming their weapons.

An officer of the Allied Army saw all of these and was touched. He immediately led a team of his men and came to help. “Warriors! We’re coming to help!”

Hao Ren’s stomach churned; while he was helping them to flee, they instead came back. “Just go!”

The knight officer slid his sword out of the sheath, looked into the sky and exclaimed, “Hahaha, warrior! Your lionheart deserves the respect as an Allied soldier! Today, you and I will go to…”

Still hovering in the air, Vivian threw a bat down and hit the officer on the head and he passed out. “Load of crap!”

While the returning knights were dumbstruck at what happened, Hao Ren pointed his long spear and motioned. “Go quickly! You guys are bogging us down!”

The knights quickly carried the fainted officer and left the battlefield in a hurry. Hao Ren let out a sigh of relief as the bunch of screwballs left.

Then he turned his head around and looked at the demon-colossus-dwarf hybrid army, thinking way to deal with yet another bunch of screwballs.

Obviously that it was now too late to explain the situation to them, even if he wanted to surrender in situ, he had to find an opportunity. He quickly fixed his eyes the biggest built demon who might be a commander—as the most prominent feature of a demonic commander—and whistled at Lily. “Come here, Lily!”

The giant husky was still riding on the back of an osidian colossus, scratching and gnawing until she was almost covered in residual osidian powder. Her ears shuddered when she heard Hao Ren’s call before jumping down from the colossus and scurried to him—with earth-trembling footsteps. Hao Ren grabbed the fur on Lily’s leg and climbed up on her head and pointed his spear at the demonic officer. “Take him first! I need him alive! Then we can explain the situation!”

Lily howled and tried to see where Hao Ren was pointing at. But imagine it: when Hao Ren stood on the head of a five-metre-tall husky, there was no way the husky could see him nor where he was pointing at, even she was squinting hard but still couldn’t find the tip of Hao Ren’s spear…

Hao Ren, “…..’

“How come everything happens to me doesn’t come to senses?” Feeling frustrated, Hao Ren jumped on the bridge of her nose and pointed forward again. “Go!”

Lily squinted hard and howled. Wind blew into Hao Ren face as Lily lunged forward. He stood upright with spear in hand, the moment was like he was being possessed by the ledengary Zhao Zilong—it would be even better if he wasn’t riding the husky.

Forget it! Husky would be just as fine as long as it had got the same white fur like a horse.

The osidian colossi had noticed the strange knight on the dog. They immediately focused their eyes before throwing out rounds of flame at Hao Ren. Despite the huge size of the husky, Lily agilely dodged all the attacks and quickly moved into the middle of the demons. A huge and burly demon guard wielding a large chained-sword—a weapon unlike any demonic weapons where its blade was actually a row of rapidly vibrating hacksaw, a terrifying death was guaranteed if one were hit by it. Looking at the frenzied stuff, Hao Ren couldn’t help but lament: by just looking at the frenzied army and the crazy weapons they were using, it was no wonder that Y’aks had almost overrun the world before the Allied Army finally defeated him!

An he recalled Y’zaks had once said: knowledge is power!

“Go to hell!” Hao Ren wielded his long spear to meet the chained sword. As both weapons came into contact, Hao Ren could feel the violent shock coming through the spear as if he was going to lose grip of it. It seemed he was too naive to fight the demon which was equipped with such nasty weapon. Suddenly, a huge flame was burst out of the tip of the spear head, and blew the enemy’s weapon in half. Hao Ren and Lily kept charging toward the target.

The dark dwarfs were drawn to the most eye-catching target on the battlefield as they immediately reloaded their rockets ready to intercept. By now Vivian had stopped her lightning storm, before the dwarfs could fire their weapons, the bat swarm swooped down from the sky and enveloped Hao Ren and Lily.

The figure of Vivian took shape on the head of Lily with blood mist on one hand and thundercloud on the other, she intercepted the four rockets which had penetrated through the bat swarm and blew them out of the sky.

The trio finally broke through all defenses. The burly demon commander raised his giant sword and attacked them but Hao Ren’s movement was a lot faster.

A shiny blue light pierced throught the air and smashed on the forehead of the demon commander. Hit by the fierce force of the impact, the demon commander was dead before it hit the ground.

“I’m the ultimate weapon! Muahaha!” the MDT exclaimed.

Hao Ren poked Lily’s nose with his spear and said, “I think the MDT has finally adapted to being a brick.”

Lily’s noise twitched, and sneezed “ACHOO—”

Chapter 430: The Questions About Helcrown

 

Hao Ren felt that he had to learn his lesson, which was never poke the most sensitive sensory organs of a canine— especially when you stood on her nose. Lily was agitated by the spear tip and sneezed, and Hao Ren was blown away and smashed into the demons which was trying to get to its feet…

Hao Ren felt like he had collided with a steel plate, and learned firsthand how hard the body muscles of the demon was. The demon had woken up from its stupor and grabbed the neck of Hao Ren, trying to reverse the situation: Unfortunately, he had grasped a guy who was tougher than itself.

Hao Ren’s Steel Membrane Shield gave out shining sparks as the demon’s big hand grabbed him. Lily took the opportunity and pounced at the demon. As they fell to the ground, Lily opened her ghastly mouth and bit down. Hao Ren tacitly dodged and let Lily’s fangs planted in the demon commander’s neck.

“Don’t move!” Hao Ren shouted in demonic language as he jumped back on Lily’s back and stood together with Vivian. “My fierce dog grew up eating demons – where is the person in charge? ”

As Hao Ren’s voice trailed off, Vivian smacked him with a look: “Are you brain dead? Isn’t he the one?”

Hao Ren scratched his hair embarrassingly. After making sure the surrounding demons and dark dwarfs did not react rashly, he motioned Lily to let off her bite. The demon commander was still struggling to break free from the Lily’s paws whose brute strength even Y’zaks might find it hard to contain, not to mention the demon was just a grassroot officer. Hao Ren glanced down at the demon, trying to communicate with it: “Don’t panic. We are not enemies, the mad demon king and us are friends. Please ask your men to back off and promise not to attack again, I have something to talk to you.”

The demon commander looked puzzledly at the human who was wielding a weird weapon, and the big dog which was pinning it on the ground. Then it nodded its head.

The dark dwarfs and demons nearby retreated slightly while those obsidian colossi’ eyes dimmed. Hao Ren jumped down to ground and pointed his spear at the devil commander;s neck, so that Lily could carefully let off her paws. The demon commander got to its feet slowly and cautiously with the spear to his neck. It seemed to have noticed that Hao Ren and his companions weren’t hostile, it relaxed its muscles.

Hao Ren glanced slightly at the direction of La Nina, realised the latter hadn’t the intention to reveal herself as she was covering her face with a hood.

There was an unknown ‘Y’zaks’ in town, both the voice and the appearance of which were similar to the genuine one. It was very difficult to tell its identity and motivation. So it was just as difficult to tell whether these remnants of the demonic army were on their side? If La Nina revealed herself suddenly at this time, it was difficult to say what reaction the the demon king impersonator in Helcrown would have—after all, La Nina is the confidante of Y’zaks, it was easy for her to spot the difference.

She might be in the midst of finding the right timing to reveal herself.

“You are the remnants of the mad demon king?” Hao Ren made sure the demon commander was under his control as he pondered way to get information about the situation in Helcrown, “Weren’t Helcrown destroyed and Y’zaks dead?”

“How dare you call the king by his name!” These were the first words out of the demon commander’s mouth, but it was also greatly surprised that there was still people in this world dared to mention the king’s name, even worse was it was a human. What this human was doing here?

Hao Ren scratched his hair with the other hand and said, “I don’t care about that, I’m not with the Allied Army and neither I’m an enemy of the demon king’s army. I’m here because we’ve learned that the dead mad demon king has reappeared. How could that possible?”

While he was asking, his eyes were on Helcrown looking for movement. Although they were within the blind spot just below Helcrown, those demons in the city must have realised something was wrong as it had been quite a while since they last sent their small forces down here. Hao Ren didn’t know when those demons would come down to check—if the fake Y’zaks were to come down personally, it would be better as Lanina and Y’zaks could confirm its identity.

The demon commander, while wondering where these weird guys came from, it responded by holding its head high: “I don’t know who you are, I’m not bound to answer your question—anyway, our king has been alive and kicking since the very beginning.”

Hao Ren’s brows knit together: “You mean, the ‘mad demon king’ has been with you from the beginning? He’s not dead?”

The fake Y’zaks above had never left Helcrown from the very beginning? He didn’t come out from nowhere?

The demon commander didn’t say a word, but its attitude had said it all.

Hao Ren thought for a moment, and he still had some questions in his mind. At that moment, La Nina suddenly came up from behind, she gave Hao Ren a look as if telling him not to worry, then she removed the hood. The dark dwarfs and demons were stunned.

The henchman of the demon king seldom made appearance in public but the First Legion stationed in Helcrown knew her well. Her sudden appearance had caught everyone by surprise as the demon commander said in a quivering voice, “The…the great sage?”

Hao Ren was thinking to make a grand appearance with Lanina but the moment he heard the title his eyes were on stalks. He looked at Lanina, perplexed: “The Great Sage? How did you get that title?”

“I was a strategist of the empire, so if I’m not called a great sage, what else? A general?” Lanina shrugged, “Is the title strange?”

Hao Ren thought for a long moment. He was too embarrassed to admit that comparing to ‘the great sage’ title of Lanina, his other team members had rather out-of-style title—husky, poor vampire,mantis shrimp, good guy, Wang Daquan.

As if Nangong Wuyue had the same thinking as Hao Ren, she said quietly to him, “Finally there’s someone with a normal title in our team…”

Hao Ren covered his face: he felt the biggest weirdness now was this normal title…

Lanina waved and motioned her former comrades to quiet down, as she looked the the demon commander calmly. “It’s me—now what’s happening in the city? How did you survive? Who is in charge now?”

The demon commander immediately stood uprightly as if by reflex. “Yes, Great Sage! The city is fine! We were drawn into another dimension but suffering no damage. The king is safe, he presides over the city!”

“Great,” La Nina nodded, pointing her hand to Hao Ren and the others. “They are my friends. Don’t worry, they are quite trustable. After I was separated from the main forces, I had inadvertently entered the human world and was lucky to be taken care of by them. They are my allies for many years. Though they didn’t join the demon army, they had been very helpful all this while.”

Lanina lied but there was no way the demon commander was going to suspect her because she had obviously given thought to the lie beforehand. The demon commander believed them as it said with a wacky smile on his face just like Y’zaks, “I apologise for the misunderstanding just now. But how did come with the Allied Army?”

“We needed a cover in the Demonic Plane. It was better to pose as human in the Allied Army which was easier to reason with rather than running undercover among the unreasonable demons” La Nina stared into the demon commander’s eyes, “Since the city is fine, then let us in. I’ll confirm with the King about what had happened all this while.”

Devil commander responded normally. It nodded with joy: “Of course, we”ll call the portal.”

Then it grinned: “Great Sage, your safe return is the greatest good news, the king will be very happy. With your help, the people in the city will be having more peace of mind. The rebuilding of the legion should be able to start soon.”

La Nina just nodded slightly before she asked casually, “Is the king injured? Is He resting in this city all this while?”

“Yeah, he’s been in town all the time, working on some power reactor. He seldom appears in public.”

“Studying power reactor?” La Nina’s brows pulled together slightly before relaxing. “Oh well, then please open the portal.”