Chapter 374: Pick One and Kill It

In the Demon Valley, a half-blood demon child with two demon horns on his head rode a bamboo horse, waved a bamboo whip, and ran past yelling, "Prepare to die, evil field-destroyer! My lord Seeing Ange will destroy you!"

The children playing the field-destroyers shrieked, burst into laughter, and scattered in all directions.

Seeing this scene, Green Wood's face creased into wrinkles from smiling. He shook his head with satisfaction and cracked open the fire sunflower in his hand.

It was a magical plant similar to a sunflower, growing in environments rich in fire element. Its enormous flower could gather large amounts of fire element and grow white sunflower seeds.

As for its uses—eat too many and you'll get a sore throat, it'll help with constipation, and when practicing fire-element magic, cracking on sunflower seeds speeds up recovery. The taste isn't bad either.

It can't compare to the fire dragon fruit that improves elemental affinity, but it's tasty and cheap, so plenty of people buy it.

So now Demon Valley grows this crop in large batches, sells it to the main plane for money, then uses the money to buy grain, forming an economic cycle.

With Demon Valley's barren land, the grain grown can no longer feed the gradually increasing population, and Seeing Ange has to provide relief from time to time—this is unhealthy.

Every place needs output to keep running, otherwise if some accident happens it'll be a big problem, like the Lich City a few years ago.

Don't think accidents won't happen—if even the Undying Monarch can go missing, what could be more of an accident than that?

As long as Seeing Ange has land to farm, it's fine. Now the land being farmed is farther and farther away, and it's been a long time since he's come to Demon Valley, so Demon Valley needs to be even more self-reliant.

But Green Wood didn't consider any of these problems to be problems. Compared to being ruled by demons a few years ago, life now was like being in heaven—already too happy. Even if Green Wood died now, he wouldn't feel any regret.

There's food—three meals a day, every meal different.

This was simply unimaginable. In the old Demon Valley, he was a slave, and getting one meal a day was already pretty good.

Even that single meal rarely gave him a chance to eat his fill. Only during the busy farming season each year would the demons let them eat their fill—otherwise everyone would lack the strength to work.

As for the taste of the food, Green Wood didn't care before—having something to eat was already good enough.

Now that he's eaten too many good things, occasionally recalling what he used to eat makes him throw up on the spot. He really doesn't know how he managed to eat it back then.

There's shelter. In Demon Valley, people live in caves carved out of the cliff walls, with hardened floors—clean and sanitary. In the past, because there were no wind-blocking doors or breathable windows, people froze to death whenever the weather turned cold.

Now there are not only doors and windows, but also stoves for heating. Pick up a few hot rocks from beside the underground fire, and you can stay warm for a whole night.

But because of the underground fire, the weather in Demon Valley that could freeze people to death only lasts a short three to five days. Whether you burn the stove or not doesn't matter—as long as there are doors and windows, it's fine.

There's work. His main job now is watching the children. Green Wood is already over forty years old—normally, that would be a human's prime, in the full vigor of life.

Unfortunately, from his appearance, you couldn't tell he was so young. Lord Nai Ge Li Si had initially thought he was an old human.

Malnutrition from childhood left his physical development in terrible shape—calcium deficiency made him hunched, with osteoporosis and uneven teeth.

Everything else could be made up for, but calcium deficiency really couldn't be fixed. His tooth enamel and height were already set; even if Seeing Ange came, only the Goddess Fist could possibly make him regrow.

He couldn't do heavy work, but watching children was fine. Green Wood especially liked this job—watching the endlessly energetic kids making noise and bouncing around made him feel a few years younger himself.

With food, shelter, and work, Green Wood felt his life had never been this happy. So he devoutly gave thanks to Seeing Ange, who had brought him this happy life.

And in his leisure time, he would still look up at the magnificent place in the sky. He'd heard my lord Lisa say that was the Undying Divine Kingdom—his lord Seeing Ange's temple, the final resting place of souls.

If Lord Nai Ge Li Si hadn't opposed it, Lisa would have even copied the Light Church's whole routine, fooling everyone into giving devotedly, so that after death their souls would return to the divine kingdom and enjoy eternal peace.

Unfortunately Lord Nai Ge Li Si opposed it, so Lisa brought out the ultimate weapon—immortality.

Immortality, eternal youth—wasn't that more attractive than souls returning to the divine kingdom? And the example was right before everyone's eyes: among Seeing Ange's companions, only Luther was a living person.

Everyone devoted themselves sincerely, striving to keep their consciousness after death. If you became a mindless zombie or skeleton, that meant you weren't devout enough.

So most believers were very devout.

Green Wood was the same, glancing up at the sky from time to time… huh? Where's the Undying Divine Kingdom?

The sacred kingdom suspended in the sky, visible to nearly all of the Resting Abyss, had disappeared at some unknown time.

……

Main plane. Seeing Ange turned off the Heaven Stairway, then said, "I seem to have… summoned the Heaven."

"Wh-what do you mean?" Lord Nai Ge Li Si asked, trembling with fear.

"The Sacred Heaven has been summoned by me." Seeing Ange shook the Heaven Scepter in his hand, then waved his hand again—a volley of fireballs sprayed out.

"C-can you make it go back?" Lord Nai Ge Li Si asked, swallowing his saliva.

Seeing Ange shook his head.

Just then—BOOM! The entire earth, the entire sky, began to tremble, as if struck by something immensely heavy. The sky flickered with seven-colored light—the changes produced when space becomes unstable.

Then with a CRACK, in broad daylight, a great hole split open in the sky, revealing a faint glimpse of the Sacred Heaven. The light dimmed.

The Heaven has descended!

Lord Nai Ge Li Si covered his eyes, unable to watch. The Heaven had descended—the Sacred Heaven, missing for over a thousand years, had descended today, and had even smashed through the planar barrier.

No need to think about it—the entire plane had sensed it. It was too late to put it away now.

He said helplessly, "Drop the Titans down. We'll finish this as fast as we can, then run."

Seeing Ange raised the scepter. A pillar of light projected down from the rift in the sky—BOOM! A dark shadow dropped down with it. It was Purple Bones, three meters and sixty centimeters tall, clad in heavy armor, gripping the Spear of Lei Ting.

Purple Bones had already reached a height of three meters and sixty centimeters, her entire build several sizes larger, with something of the presence of a Titan giant.

"Lei Ting descends! All-conquering! Invincible! Ever forward! Fell into a pit! Get me out quick!" Purple Bones roared.

The landing point of the light pillar was the swampy wetland outside the magic circle. The moment Purple Bones hit the ground, she let out a few mighty shouts—then began to sink. The Weight on the Body made it impossible for her to even struggle; the more she struggled, the faster she sank.

Everyone exchanged glances. In the end, it was Duroken who tapped a few times with his Midas Rod, hardening the ground at the light pillar's landing point, and only then did Purple Bones break free in one surge.

Well, Duroken couldn't stay idle either. He hardened a ring of ground around the magic circle. After the Titans landed, they gathered around the magic circle, smashing flat the snake-lice that charged in, and flung the corpses onto the spikes.

As blood and flesh soaked into the spikes, the entire magic circle actually began to expand and rise, growing sturdier and sturdier. No wonder it was called the Flesh-and-Blood Grinding Field—it could actually use the corpses' blood and flesh as energy.

The last things dropped down were two War Giant Trees. Though a hundred meters tall, they had coiled themselves into a ring less than five meters across. After landing, their roots dug into the swamp and stretched out as if drugged.

The three Ao-Long people being held in the air by tentacles in the distance were now trembling in their voices: "Wh-what… what kind of people are these?"

"That man acting as a magic battery—his mana is like the void, endless and inexhaustible. Even an Archmage of Truth doesn't have this level. And that Blazing Firebird was casually pushed by him to the level of Arcane Meaning."

"That alchemist is also very strong. The alchemy he uses is too mysterious—I can't understand it."

"Hiss—you can't understand it either? But you're the most powerful alchemist among us Ao-Long people!"

"In this situation, saying I'm the strongest is like putting me on a fire. I don't want to face an enemy of this level."

"Sigh, that nightmare steed is the truly terrifying one. The green mist it spews is the strongest acid I've ever seen—even the snake-lice dissolve easily in it."

If the earlier conversation had still been normal, once the Holy Heaven crashed through the planar barrier and part of it became visible, their voices began to tremble: "The… the Void Fortress… fortress!"

"The… the barrier of the main… main plane has been breached."

"What the hell did we actually ram into? Our mission was just to scorch the fields, try to cut this place's grain output — not to fight a planar guardian god."

"How about… we run?"

The three Aolong-men nodded together: "Good idea."

Sliding down from the tentacles, preparing to slip away, the forehead ornament on one Aolong-man's brow suddenly flickered; it immediately raised a shield, and with a clang, a black light slashed against the shield.

The black light missed its strike and vanished back into the air.

All three Aolong-men's scales stood on end; they frantically released detection magic, desperately layered shields onto themselves, and shouted: "An assassin! An assassin! He can turn invisible!"

They discovered nothing at all, as if that black slash from before had been nothing but their imagination.

The Aolong-men didn't dare move. Assassins are a mage's natural enemy — if they couldn't find the assassin, they didn't dare to move, because if they moved, many of their magics would fail, and the assassin could easily kill them.

If they didn't move, the assassin was as if it had never existed, utterly silent; the moment they moved, a black light would come slashing out of nowhere.

They threw caution to the wind and cast wide-area high-powered magic, blasting indiscriminately for a stretch — but the moment they moved again, another black light would slash across.

For the moment, the Aolong mages didn't dare move, and so they reached a standoff with the assassin.

The number of snake-lice kept dwindling, and those tentacle monsters also began crawling up out of the swamp.

"Swamp tentacle monsters? How are they this big?" This was a swamp beast native to the land, originally quite small — about the size of a pig — lurking in the muck and living off humus.

Its usual hunting method was to use its tentacles to bind living prey, drag it into the mire, wait for the corpse to rot, then feed on the humus; its life form sat somewhere between animal and plant.

Only now, the tentacle monsters crawling out were far too large — each one was the size of a house, and its tentacles, when swung, were over a dozen meters long.

But whether tentacle monsters or snake-lice, neither was an especially powerful individual; if it were one-on-one, they couldn't even break through Seeing Ange's firepower blockade.

But this time they had been far too careless, plunging straight into a swarm of monsters; enemies came pouring in from every direction, and Seeing Ange immediately found his fireballs weren't enough.

With insufficient firepower, others could pick off the gaps — enemies that charged to the front were individually picked off by various skills, spells, and techniques, or smashed to death by the Titans.

Even Loser, who usually drew his sword and looked around in a daze only to find the enemies already dead, managed to rack up a good dozen or so.

But they weren't infinite after all, and the moment would come when they were all slain. Half an hour later, the flesh-grinding ground was already piled high with corpses, and the magic circle had become a giant stone platform some twenty-odd meters in diameter and ten meters tall.

Over the snake-lice corpses, Hermel sprayed green mist, dissolving them to prevent them from hatching out little snake-lice.

Seeing Ange stepped directly onto the air and walked; Lord Nai Ge Li Si and the others hurried to follow, flying toward where the three Aolong-men were.

The three black shadows dropped their invisibility and revealed their true forms.

"Void Walkers?!" the Aolong mages cried out in shock, but quickly denied it: "No, that's not Void Walkers — what are these things?"

A crack split open at the mouth of one black shadow's face, opening and closing as it spoke: "Don't you people have Black Warriors over there?"

The Aolong mages blinked, faces blank — clearly they had never heard of them.

Nai Ge Li Si laughed: "Your resurrection altar was invented by Anthony; they don't even recognize undying creatures, let alone Black Warriors."

Turning to the Aolong-men, Nai Ge Li Si asked: "What are you things? Where are you from? Why are you attacking us?"

The Aolong mages said without changing expression: "It was them attacking you, nothing to do with us — we don't know these monsters."

Nai Ge Li Si spread his hands, turned to Seeing Ange and said: "Pick one and kill it."

Seeing Ange swept out a hand, and a row of fireballs blasted toward one of the Aolong mages — the fellow was standing on a wild rice stalk.

Although this wasn't exactly a great crime, Nai Ge Li Si had said pick any, so he picked this one.

The Aolong mage panicked and raised a shield, trying to struggle, but it was pointless — a row of fireballs couldn't kill it, so another row came; unless it had endless magic like Seeing Ange, it could only be ground to death.

The third row of fireballs blasted through the opponent's defenses and burned the Aolong mage to ash.

The other two Aolong mages' legs went weak, but they still braced themselves and said: "We still have a Spatial Mystery mage — once he comes back, you're dead for sure."

Seeing Ange fished Galiguti out and dangled him in front of them; the two Aolong mages finally couldn't hold on anymore and dropped to their knees with a splash in the mud: "We surrender, we come from the Eternal Road, the Aolong race…"

Just as the Aolong mages were confessing everything one by one, Seeing Ange tilted his head — he had received Anthony's summons.

The moment he connected, he heard Anthony's anxious voice: "my lord, half an hour ago we detected a violent impact on the planar barrier — does it have anything to do with you?"

"Yes," Seeing Ange replied.

Anthony let out a breath: "I knew it. Is it the descent of Heaven? I just received intelligence — every Arbiter Angel, Judgment Angel, and gargoyle of the Tribunal has swarmed out, and even the Arbiter God himself has descended. I'm afraid…"

Before Anthony could finish, Seeing Ange suddenly answered: "I see them."

Beyond the horizon, countless points of light streaked at extreme speed toward this place; the largest cluster of light at their head belonged to a golden giant.