Chapter 113

After a month-long march, Sarut led his army to Blacktooth Pass, the end of the canyon—but not the end of Sarut’s march. Beyond this trumpet-shaped pass, the path ahead became extraordinarily winding and treacherous.

By afternoon, the towering rock walls on either side of the canyon gradually squeezed the sky into a narrow, dark red line. The boar-headed vanguard scouts had just reported no signs of large-scale demon activity ahead.

For Sarut, a battle-hardened commander, such terrain—perfect for ambushes—was always to be thoroughly reconnoitered and swiftly crossed; when the enemy chose to strike, no amount of preparation could prevent heavy losses.

The previous afternoon, the army had already reached the pass. To prevent surprises, Sarut ordered an early camp setup and rest, while demanding increased night patrols to guard against demon raids.

He dispatched numerous scouts to reconnoiter and test the cliffs with ranged fire; after repeated confirmation of no danger, he ordered the entire army to don armor and advance in combat formation through the pass. Though boar-headed soldiers possessed far greater stamina than humans, they too refused to march in full armor.

As the Fang Legion led the way through the pass, the attack began not from above, but from the rock walls themselves. Countless petrified lizard demons, disguised as rock nodules and moss, suddenly shed their camouflage and dropped from cliffs nearly a hundred meters high.

These demons were small in size, but their shells were as hard as iron, and their fall carried the force of a siege ram. Their target was not the soldiers, but the large humpbacked lizard beasts in the center of the column, laden with siege engines and heavy supplies.

Several precious pack beasts screamed and collapsed under muffled impacts and cracking bones, their cargo crushed instantly, blocking the already narrow passage.

At nearly the same moment, the seemingly solid rocky ground on both sides of the column collapsed, revealing pre-dug tunnel networks. Abyssal creatures known as “Razorworm Demons” surged forth like geysers.

Their bodies were the size of large hunting dogs, with razor-sharp shell edges, specialized for ground-hugging high-speed crawling and targeting limbs. They did not seek to kill heavily armored soldiers, but instead frenziedly sliced ankles and severed tendons, creating chaos and agony. Soldiers on the formation’s edges were dragged down instantly; screams merged with the screech of metal scraping bone.

As the army descended into chaos from attacks front and rear, abyssal spear-throwers and acid-spitters emerged from crevices and caves to carry out precise assassinations. Their targets were clear: officers, standard-bearers, and communication troops.

Spears soaked in corrosive slime and globes of acid flew from unpredictable angles; several commanders attempting to regroup fell instantly. The legion’s command system began to lag, and chaos intensified further.

Sarut’s roar drowned out the din: “Shield wall! Contract toward the center! Ignore what’s above—clear the ground first!”

His judgment was swift and decisive: the “meteorites” above were one-time threats; the worm tide below was the persistent source of damage. Boar-headed soldiers executed the order with astonishing discipline, forming a circular defense with massive shields and bodies, shielding the vulnerable pack beasts in the center. Polearms thrust through gaps in the shields, strangling the approaching Razorworm Demons.

When Sarut personally led his bodyguard unit in a counter-charge against the worm tide, attempting to root out the commanders deep within the tunnels, all the demons, as if receiving a silent command, swiftly retreated along the tunnels and holes in the cliffs.

They left behind only wreckage, fallen soldiers, destroyed supplies, and a thicker stench of sulfur and blood filling the canyon.

This attack was a cold, dark warning: every inch of land ahead would have to be paid for in blood. Sarut stood beside the destroyed siege crossbow, watching soldiers carry away their comrades’ corpses, his face grim. The road to Stonekeep was longer and bloodier than he had imagined.

When Malgash’s call echoed across the Abyss, only slightly more than a third of the demons truly answered his summons. Others, due to extreme distance, were beyond reach; many more, out of indifference or covert resistance to this Abyss Lord’s authority.

The Shatterstone Continent was a classic microcosm of this fractured situation. This land was torn apart by crisscrossing, treacherous mountain ranges, with less than one-twentieth of its area being flat, arable land.

The rest consisted of jagged peaks, deep ravines, and barren plateaus. Such a cruel and stingy environment had, unusually, failed to ignite Malgash’s strong desire for conquest; the cost-to-return ratio, in Abyssal arithmetic, was far too lopsided.

Thus, a unique power vacuum and shattered ecology emerged. Over thirty demon lords each held sway over a valley or geothermal basin encircled by natural fortresses, forming warring warlords.

Countless other abyssal creatures, dependent on extreme environments to survive and reproduce—such as the “Glow-Cancer Swarms” dwelling in mineral veins, the “Thunderwings” soaring through lightning storms, and the “Flame-Bound Demons” lurking in subterranean rivers—were too numerous to count. They typically answered only to their own kind’s leaders.

Many of these demons were native lifeforms that underwent drastic changes after their world was swallowed by the Abyss, influenced by Abyssal laws—but they lacked the chaotic disorder and fanatical thirst for destruction characteristic of true Abyssal demons.

Not all demons originated from pure void. When the entire world was swallowed by the Abyss, its native beings, under the relentless erosion of Abyssal laws, underwent horrific distortions in flesh, soul, and essence, eventually falling into the ranks of demons.

Yet these “after-born” demons often bore subtle yet critical distinctions from the “native demons” born directly from the Abyss’s deepest layers.

They retained fragments of their original species’ habits, physical memories, even echoes of social structures. More importantly, they lacked the absolute, innate fanaticism for pure chaos and indiscriminate destruction rooted in the Abyss’s core.

Thus, within the Abyssal ranks, these “converted demons” were often regarded as impure, second-class beings—estranged from the order of light, yet never fully embracing the chaos of darkness, eternally torn and tormented on a narrow bridge between two cliffs.

For Sarut, the origins or lingering instincts of these demons meant nothing. In his military logic, there was only one simple, cold equation: anything blocking the path to Stonekeep was an “obstacle”; any obstacle must be shattered and erased.

Whether they had once been birds, beasts, or native races of this land, they now represented only one thing: resistance to be crushed beneath his legion’s tread. Mercy or understanding had no place before the battle-axe.

To these native-converted demons, Sarut’s boar-headed army was a loathsome invader. Though they had never fervently served the Abyss, guarding their valleys, ravines, and nests was an instinct rooted in the deepest core of their twisted lives.

This disciplined, iron-flowing army was systematically destroying their familiar world. Thus, resistance was no longer born of loyalty to the Abyss, but of a desperate, rage-fueled survival strike against annihilation.

After ten days of crossing mountains and ridges, Sarut’s legion emerged from a narrow rock passage known locally as “Skullcrusher Corridor,” and before them opened a vast, sudden expanse—yet also deeper peril.

They entered a massive, nearly elliptical basin, 210 kilometers long and nearly 70 kilometers wide. Its edges were near-vertical black basalt cliffs, a hundred meters high, like the inner walls of a giant bowl, slicing the sky into a suffocating circular ring. This place was called “Lingyan Basin.”

The only entrance was the Skullcrusher Corridor the legion had just passed through—a natural fissure on the basin’s northwest side, wide enough for only thirty men to march side by side.

According to harpy scout reports, a crack on the southeastern cliff, locally called “Weeping Blood Throat,” was the sole exit—but the demon lord entrenched here showed no intention of clearing the way.

The basin floor was littered with jagged stone forests and bottomless fissures. The ground was dark red, covered in a hard, glassy layer of petrified lava, clearly the product of ancient, violent geological activity.

Even now, several spots continuously spewed hot, sulfur-laden steam from ground fissures, forming natural fog barriers and visual obstructions. Scattered across the ground were countless massive, pale white fossilized bones of giant creatures, half-buried, serving as additional obstacles and potential cover.

At the basin’s center bubbled a dark green, acidic pool, its waters corrosive and its vapors toxic. Around it grew twisted plants adapted to the Abyssal environment.

Blood-sucking vines shaped like tentacles, capable of capturing small prey; thorny thickets covered in metallic spines that reflected magical energy; and enormous fluorescent mushroom caps releasing hallucinogenic spores. These were not decorations—they were part of the demonic environment.

The cliffs surrounding the basin were riddled with caves of varying sizes, as well as artificial walkways and platforms—clearly the long-term work of the demon lord entrenched here.

At the highest points, the entrances to several giant caves revealed crude but sturdy trebuchets, ballista positions, and pre-built chutes for rolling boulders or pouring corrosive fluids.

Between the stone forest and fissures, rough walls and trench systems could be seen—not built for prolonged defense, but to divide and mislead attacking formations.

“Report, Marshal: According to data from the Shadow Intelligence Bureau, the demons we’ve encountered are Rockcliff Demons—native monkeys of this plane, whose intelligence and bodies were distorted after Abyssal corruption. We captured a live one; it can communicate effectively.”

Sarut carefully examined the captive seized by the harpies. It stood about two meters tall, with an exceptionally muscular build, its entire body covered in dark gray keratinous skin, its tail thick and powerful.

Its hands and feet were unusually large, with retractable, black-metallic hooked claws at the fingertips and toes, capable of piercing rock. Its palms and soles bore suction-cup-like fleshy pads, granting extra grip on wet cliffs. When walking normally, it stood on both feet, its spine hunched forward.

“All units—halt! Set up camp here!”

Sarut’s roar drowned out the basin’s echoes, reverberating off the cliffs. He reined in his mount, his gaze sweeping the grotesque stone forest and towering cliffs. Experience told him this place was far more dangerous than anticipated—impossible to breach in a single day.

“Fortify the camp solidly! Bury the palisades deep, dig the ditches wide—sentry towers must be erected tonight!”

“Light cavalry of half-horses—patrol in squad units, increase frequency. Keep your eyes open, ears sharp—no shadow on the cliffs, no sound from the fissures, is to be ignored!”

He walked to a slightly elevated stone platform, gazing at the darkening sky and the cave shadows on the cliffs, as if watching them.

“Those ‘monkeys’ know every shadow here better than we do.” His voice dropped low, yet every commander heard it clearly. “In this hellish place, one wrong step—and you’ll hear the dirge of your entire army.”