"I—Josteric! Am the strongest..."
A massive balor trampled the corpse of the Blood Armor Devil and roared. Its enormous demonic wings heaved up and down, aggravating the gaping wound on its chest.
The opponent had been a high-ranking Blood Armor Devil, and even with the advantage of a sneak attack, it had still managed to inflict considerable damage.
As the price of killing its foe, the balor's chest was now a ruin—layers of flesh and scales peeled back to reveal glimpses of pale bone and a still-beating heart.
For a demon, such wounds were not fatal, but they would require time to heal.
As a high-ranking demon of noble bloodline, Josteric had drawn the covetous gaze of many devils—and perhaps even fellow demons. Should any demon slay him, they could claim a portion of his power, and potentially even ascend to become a balor themselves!
Therefore, scattered around the Blood Armor Devil's corpse lay other demon corpses—the remains of opportunists who had tried to seize the moment, only to be torn to shreds.
"Just a little more—give me a little more flesh and soul, and I can advance!"
A layer of blood-red energy surfaced around Josteric. Streams of molten rock even formed faint meridian-like patterns coiling around his body. Clearly, this balor stood at the very threshold of advancement—perhaps slaying just one more powerful foe would earn the Abyss's favor, allowing him to ascend to the pinnacle of demonkind: the Balor Lord!
[Monster Paralysis Spell!]
The sudden flare of magical light halted the balor's roar. Its eyes burned with fury and surprise as it looked upon the devilish figure that materialized from the void.
The figure bore twisted, grotesque horns—clearly a high-ranking Horned Devil.
—[Fireball!]
—[Advanced Entangling Spell!] The opponent gave Josteric no chance to speak. A wave of the hand unleashed a devastating inferno that engulfed the balor in an instant, followed by another wave of summoning light.
—[Summon Devil!]
From the teleportation circle that appeared out of thin air, several of Leilin's mid-rank devil subordinates emerged and launched a desperate assault on the balor.
"Graaagh! Cloaking again! Sneaking again! You despicable devils!"
The balor roared. A torrent of malevolent energy erupted from its body, forcing the mid-rank devils to stagger backward.
"I'm a devil—did you expect me to duel you like some knight?" Leilin scoffed. A black dagger was already buried deep in the balor's eye socket.
"Aaaagh..."
An ear-splitting shriek echoed across the battlefield, followed by a terrifying roar: "I'll kill you! Josteric will crush your skull to dust!"
Scarlet flames erupted from the eye socket with such intensity that the dagger melted into a stream of molten iron.
"It—it's about to advance!"
One of Leilin's mid-rank devil captains cried out, only to be snatched up by the frenzied balor. Lethal flames climbed up his body, transforming him into a blazing torch.
"You will all die!!!" With the balor's thunderous roar, a wave of fire swept outward. Leilin's subordinates were decimated—seven or eight out of ten struck down in an instant.
Before the flames could reach him, Leilin activated [Advanced Teleportation] and vanished from the battlefield.
"Don't you run!"
The balor, wreathed in flame, now bore little difference from a Balor Lord. Spotting Leilin's silhouette from the corner of its remaining eye, it roared and gave chase with reckless fury.
In its path, whether demon or devil, everything was reduced to pulp or ash, carving a bloody corridor through the battlefield.
"You damned devil! Don't you run!"
With its single remaining eye, Josteric saw that wretched devil had already reached the fortress walls and was about to rejoin his allies.
Blinding rage propelling it forward, the balor charged without regard for any danger.
Boom!
But then—the ground suddenly caved in. Josteric lost his footing entirely, and his colossal body plummeted into a massive pit, triggering a small earthquake.
Beneath his feet, at some unknown moment, a gigantic trap had been dug.
—[Dimensional Anchor]!
—[Waterfall Spell]!
—[Frost Breath]!
Devils who had materialized at some earlier point stood around the trap's edge, unleashing spell after spell upon the balor at its center.
"Commander!" Hanalin rushed to Leilin's side. She had received his orders and begun setting the trap—but she never imagined the target would be a balor!
No—even if someone had called it a Balor Lord, devils would have believed it!
In that moment, Leilin's overwhelming power was seared indelibly into Hanalin's heart.
"Well done." Leilin nodded in satisfaction, then turned his gaze to the balor encased in ice.
"Chip? How's the data collection?"
[Ding! Flesh sample acquired! Biological structure and soul scan complete! Progress: 100%!]
The Chip reported faithfully.
"Good. Then you've served your purpose!"
Leilin's figure dove downward. A thin black line traced across the balor's neck—the accompanying soul attack extinguishing every trace of madness and chaos in its eyes.
"No... impossible... I am Josteric, the greatest demon... I was supposed to advance to Balor Lord... how can I die here..."
Josteric murmured as his colossal body toppled.
The instant the balor fell, Leilin felt a torrent of soul energy pour into him, accompanied by what felt like a faint touch of Infernal favor.
"Compared to other paths of advancement, the harvest from the Blood War is indeed generous..."
Though this power meant little to Leilin himself, had he truly been a horned devil, this soul energy would have satisfied more than half the requirement for advancement.
"High risk means high reward! Any devil or demon who survives the Blood War gains tremendous progress. No wonder the Eight Demon Generals are willing to risk complete annihilation to bring the demons into Hell..."
For devils, they preferred to exploit every scheme and stratagem to shift the battlefield away from Hell and onto some other plane.
This strategy contained a secret known only to veteran Pit Fiends and the Eight Lords of Hell—and naturally, it was no secret to Leilin.
If a devil was killed within Hell, they died truly and permanently—no form of resurrection was possible!
But if they perished in another plane, there remained hope of revival, provided one paid the appropriate price!
In other words, any devil who died in this Blood War was essentially beyond resurrection—even
Willing to bear such a risk, what the Eight Demon Generals hoped to gain could not be as simple as a mere reward!
Understanding dawned upon Leilin in an instant.
BOOM!!!
Just then, a terrifying explosion erupted at the heart of the battlefield. A colossal firestorm howled outward, tearing apart everything in its path and forming a scarlet mushroom cloud.
"That's the [Immolation Burst] of a dying Balor Lord! It seems the Eight Demon Generals have succeeded!"
Explosion followed explosion. Leilin could confirm with certainty that four Balor Lords had fallen to the Eight Demon Generals.
Their dying counterattacks—only the cunning Pit Fiends had escaped using [Greater Teleportation]—had annihilated all the other high-ranking devils involved in the siege and claimed countless demon casualties as well.
"The outcome is decided! With four Balor Lords killed in succession, along with a host of high-ranking demons, even the Abyss Lords will be gravely weakened—and heartsick for a long time to come..."
Leilin was not the only one who recognized this.
At the moment of the first Balor Lord's [Immolation Burst], accompanied by a piercing shriek, a seductive succubus—injured gravely by her own sacrifice—burst through the encirclement of four Pit Fiends, trailing a long plume of flame across the sky.
"That must have been the 'Red Shroud'—commander of this demon legion, and the most favored daughter of that Abyss Lord, the Succubus King... What a pity—after this failed campaign, her standing will be precarious indeed..."
The successive fall of high-ranking combatants, combined with the commander's flight, dealt a fatal blow to the demon legion.
As swarms of high-ranking devils entered the battlefield and began slaughtering the low-ranking demons, the legion's total destruction entered its final countdown.
...
After the battle's conclusion, it was determined that the demon legion—with the exception of their commander, the Red Shroud, and a fortunate handful who escaped—had been mostly annihilated within the Bronze Fortress. Among the dead were even four Balor Lords, further adding to the shame of the Abyss's demons inscribed upon the fortress walls.
Such a brilliant victory was rare even in the annals of the Blood War.
And in this encirclement, the five-colored dragon
After the fighting ceased, Leilin saw that the dragon's massive body was riddled with dents and scorch marks. The headless male dragon behind it also appeared thoroughly spent—they had borne the brunt of the retreating demons' desperate attacks, particularly the final [Immolation Burst] from the Balor Lords, which had inflicted devastating injuries.
Leilin had only just learned the reason for their extraordinary effort: the Eight Demon Generals had promised to hand over control of the Bronze Fortress after the battle, acknowledging their status as its rightful masters!
In that instant, Leilin smelled the thick stench of conspiracy.
Control of the Bronze Fortress! This was something Asmodeus had schemed for over a thousand years to obtain—and now it was being handed away without the slightest hesitation. The abnormality of it was something even a lemur could see!
And for devils to make such an enormous concession, only one thing could motivate them—an even greater profit!!!