Chapter 1097: Demon Eggs and Demon Hatcheries
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 1097: Demon Eggs and Demon Hatcheries
The Abyssal Demon Academy.
This was the unified academy formed after integrating all demon branch academies in the Main World. It had officially changed its name following the arrival of the Abyssal Demon transcendent forces in the Main World.
During the early stages of the Academy War initiated by the Witch Academy, they had "followed suit" and begun their own external invasions. This had invisibly diverted a significant amount of fire away from the Witch Academy, tying up much of the Hundred Academy Alliance's energy.
After all... a demon's desires and greed were bottomless. They could never be content with huddling in one tiny corner.
As "newcomers," acting out of turn would usually invite collective suppression from the other transcendent races. However, with the Witch Academy taking the lead in shattering the order of the Main World—even launching an Academy War and seizing territories—the Abyssal Demons felt the restrictions were well and truly lifted.
With the Witch Academy out front, bearing the infamy of destroying the peace and order of the Main World, the Abyssal Demons followed behind, acting with utter inhumanity.
One could say that the Transcendent Witches and the Abyssal Demons had reached a cooperative relationship of sorts.
Of course, the high-ranking Abyssal Demons also understood that their current allies were definitely not the Three Great Transcendent Races. Those races were driven by a madness to destroy the Main World, but the demons had just paid a massive price to settle here a few years ago. Who were they supposed to complain to if the world ended?
This wasn't a forced relocation with compensation. If those lunatics destroyed the Main World, the Witches would likely turn around and slaughter the demons next.
That would leave the Abyssal Demons as the only suckers who lost everything.
Or rather, it would be a "triple-loss" scenario. The Three Great Transcendent Races would lose their lives, the Transcendent Academies would lose the Main World, and the Abyssal Demons... their resources would go down the drain. If things went poorly enough, they might even lose their lives as well.
However, these were interests and gambits at the Academy and Transcendent levels. Abyssal Demons at the non-transcendent level only cared about the immediate benefits.
The reason they had entered the fray was, of course, because of the Emerald Forest.
That was an entire world!
Life, flesh, soul essence, and vast quantities of extraordinary materials...
A demon's rate of resource extraction from a world was terrifying, as was the erosion of Abyssal Demon power upon a world. Thus, they had made their move.
The objects falling from the sky were none other than Abyssal Demon flesh-and-blood eggs.
This was the preferred method of world invasion for Abyssal Demons. Whether it was tearing open space to let endless demons and Lesser Demons pour through the rift, or packaging them into flesh-and-blood eggs to be "delivered" for rapid hatching, the essence was the same.
Naturally, the demons were tactful. They dropped the Demon Eggs into the Elven territories rather than directly into the Emerald Forest.
Dropping them into Elven territory constituted non-transcendent competition. If they dropped them directly into the Emerald Forest... that would be the Transcendent Demons deciding they had lived too long.
* * *
At that moment, the Afuhemi Forest Elves remaining in the area were suppressing their psychological and physiological disgust as they dealt with the Lesser Demons. they used raging fires to incinerate the masses of flesh.
If they weren't burned, these disgusting things would wring out every last drop of flesh and demon power to hatch bizarrely shaped demons. Even if these demons weren't particularly strong, they were profoundly revolting.
However, the Elves' moods did not lighten even as the chunks of demon flesh were reduced to ash.
This piece was merely a small fragment that had splattered off the massive main body. Many looked toward the gargantuan Demon Egg that had crashed into the surface; the mere thought of it made their skin crawl.
Demons would writhe and tumble out of that flesh like maggots, eventually forming a Demon Tide that would surge toward them.
A Demon Tide was a terrifying thing. Even if individual demons were weak, their mountain-like, sea-like numbers—combined with their extreme efficiency in utilizing flesh—could exhaust an opponent to death. If those demons possessed special abilities, or even just carried specific demonic plagues, curses, or viruses, they would be even more difficult to handle.
And reality unfolded exactly as they had predicted.
The Demon Eggs didn't arrive as a single unit; there were many of them.
Abyssal Demons at the non-transcendent level were all treated as consumables deployed by Transcendent Demons to achieve their goals. Thus, the Abyssal Demon Academy was less an "academy" and more a flesh-and-blood demon den. Their flesh would fuse, eventually giving birth to new individuals. And what kind of individual was considered a "student"?
Only those demons with the potential to ascend to the Transcendent level were students!
Therefore, students within the Abyssal Demon Academy were fundamentally incapable of managing such long-distance Demon Egg deployments. This was undoubtedly the work of Transcendent Demons. Even if they hadn't intervened directly, they had at least lent an indirect hand.
Tearing through space was child's play for Abyssal Demons. Their methods for invading across worlds were commonplace, let alone crossing distances within the same world—the Main World.
This move by the Abyssal Demons was a constant testing of boundaries. They knew the unspoken rule that Transcendents should not interfere, but that was a product of the conflict between the Witches and the Three Great Races. The Abyssal Demons were essentially "Chaotic Neutral."
The Witches didn't care if they acted, as the demons lacked the power to destroy the Main World. The Three Great Races tacitly accepted it as well; after all, if they pushed the demons completely to the opposing side, they would be the ones suffering in the end.
And so, this "surprise force" intervened in the struggle for the Emerald Forest in this manner.
* * *
Meanwhile, on the other side, the Holy Angels and Wizards found themselves forced into a temporary alliance.
After all, their only major enemy here was the Witch Academy. Furthermore, this was the back garden of the Afuhemi Academy. They were isolated in terms of interests, so they could only join forces temporarily in terms of military power.
The Wizards and Holy Angels didn't share much of a border with the Elves, and their deployments weren't particularly extensive. The Holy Angels were essentially there to grab a piece of the pie, providing people but minimal effort.
The Wizards, meanwhile, were constantly tinkering with their spatial Wizard Tools, attempting to summon their main forces and become one of the protagonists of this conflict.
However, the impact of the world overlap on material space far exceeded their expectations. Their Wizard Tools also required calibration.
"I smell the filthy, foul stench of demons," a member of the Holy Angel Academy said, frowning.
Holy Angels were a race that believed in the Faith of Holy Light. Their distaste for Wizards stemmed from the Wizards' dirty methods. Even if Wizards claimed it was the dominance and utilization of knowledge, those methods had been steeped in bloodshed from the very beginning.
But compared to demons, the Wizards' methods were nothing.
The Holy Angels' loathing for Abyssal Demons was an instinct carved into their racial concept and deep within the essence of their lives.
Thus, after the Demon Eggs landed and began hatching, the faint pheromones and the stench of filth had already begun to grate on the Holy Angels' nerves.
"Abyssal Demons? You mean those things that just fell from the sky are demonic creations?" a Wizard stepped forward to ask, also frowning. The answer was still somewhat hard to believe.
How did those disgusting things have the capability to intervene in this struggle?
However, the Wizard's expression soon turned grim as reports came back from scouts who had followed the unknown falling objects.
It really was demons!
The things that had crashed into the earth were demonic flesh, and they were now continuously hatching demons. Driven by hunger, those demons were devouring every living thing in sight—including their own kind, Lesser Demons and fellow demons alike—just to grow stronger.
By the time they reached full strength, the resistance would be even greater.
* * *
At the same time, the No. 4 Combat Sequence led by Dolores also encountered a Demon Egg.
It wasn't that they didn't want to avoid it, but the crash site was directly on their path to the Void Rift.
Dolores had simply wanted to fly over at high altitude to see what it was. But after seeing it, she nearly gagged.
The things that were essentially confirmed to be flesh were hatching demons at a staggering speed!
The demons had no food upon birth, so they immediately began cannibalizing their kin. By the time Dolores saw them, the demons had already submerged several nearby Treants.
Even though Treants were essentially plants, these extraordinary lifeforms were still on the demons' menu.
Lesser Demons... those things would eat anything just to stay alive.
Dolores immediately reported the matter to the United Club's combat command center. She didn't need an analysis to know what seeing these things here implied.
The entry of the Abyssal Demon Academy and the intervention of demons would cause them immense trouble.
This wasn't a race; it wasn't a matter of whoever reached the finish line first winning. They had to open the Void Rift, complete the permanent solidification of the passage between the two worlds, and establish a sturdy base to reach the Emerald Forest. Otherwise, none of this meant anything.
This was a conflict of constant attrition and reinforcement. The victor would stand atop the corpses of everyone else and declare who this place belonged to!
Seeing these demons, Dolores realized one thing.
The No. 4 Combat Sequence alone could not complete the mission.
They were facing the combined forces of the Wizards and Holy Angels, the Elves with their home-field advantage, and the Abyssal Demons who were mass-producing troops through bloodshed and growing more numerous as they fought.
Aside from that person, who would dare say they could just brute-force their way through?
Upon learning that the Abyssal Demon Academy had also intervened, the United Club also frowned.
Dolores waited quietly for a response, only to receive an order to continue advancing according to the original plan.
"Tsk... what is the United Club command doing?" Dolores couldn't help but grumble.
The battle situation had mutated to this extent, and their advantages were being constantly eroded. Even if they had planned ahead, they couldn't match the opponent's home-field advantage and the aggressive arrival of other Transcendent Academies. Following the original plan was practically sending them to their deaths!
However, it wasn't all bad news.
Although the Dark Elf territory didn't border the Witch territory, it wasn't far. Thus, the support of the Witch Warship Blood River would arrive soon. That warship carried combat sequences numbered in the top three!
Their combat power was naturally not to be underestimated. While it was said that there wasn't much of a gap between the core combat sequences, each sequence represented the foundation of its corresponding core club. How could there not be a difference?
The only pity was... the travel speed of the first-generation Witch Warships was worrisome.
But there was another piece of good news: after evaluation, the temporary teleportation channel at Tuliweia Village could still support the transport of one more combat sequence. The United Club had decided to send the No. 6 Combat Sequence as reinforcement.
This would be much faster than the warship's support.
One had to remember that the club represented by the No. 6 Combat Sequence was "Battle? Cool!".
Although seeing that club name always prompted a desire to complain in many people—herself included—the combat power practically overflowed from the name alone.
"Captain? What are the orders?" the members of the No. 4 Combat Sequence looked at Dolores, waiting for her command.
"Continue with the original plan."
The original plan was essentially a framework to achieve the final goal: occupying the Void Rift. The process in between required them to analyze the situation themselves. Otherwise, what was her role as the leader of a combat sequence? Why had the United Club given her such vast authority? Was it just to be the first to shout "kill" upon seeing the enemy?
Certainly not.
"Before we leave, try to destroy these demon hatcheries. If they can't be destroyed, do your best to sabotage them. If the demons really form a Demon Tide, we need to ensure there's at least one direction we can break out from."
Dolores issued the order, and the group began destroying the flesh-and-blood hatchery created by the impact.
The method of destruction was simple: extreme devastation, burning with fire, or purification.
It wasn't just Dolores. Faced with this uninvited "opponent," everyone unified in their efforts to clear them out to the greatest extent possible.
The Holy Angels, who had intended to just coast along, were now directly provoked by the demons, activating their racial enmity buff. The Elves, with their home-field advantage, deployed their active forces to try and clear the demons. Even the Wizards were wary and lent a hand in the cleanup.
But they did not forget the ultimate goal.
As a more violent sound of shattering echoed from the sky, many looked up to see the space cracking like glass, the void turning into a deep, dark nothingness.
This further stimulated those currently in the Elven territory. Seeing that void, many assumed the Void Rift had opened and were desperate to cross the boundary and reach the new world.
But those who sought to take shortcuts—whether Elves or Wizards—were destined for disappointment.
Even if the spatial passage was opened, until the Emerald Forest and the Main World began their preliminary fusion, the restrictions of the Ley Line Shackles would not allow them to leave the Main World.
Dolores was also drawn by this phenomenon. She decisively ordered the abandonment of the demon flesh destruction and headed there as fast as possible.
However, she still couldn't beat the Elves who were already there.
When Dolores saw those shortcut-seekers falling from the sky, she felt a secret sense of relief.
It seemed that, as mentioned in the data, the worlds had not yet begun to fuse, and the restrictions of the Ley Line Shackles had not been lifted.
