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{Chapter: 259: Scorched Skies and Silent Earth}
Early next morning, millions of abyssal demons followed the trembling pulse of the colossal teleportation array and descended—howling, hissing, and clawing—upon the ruins of Augustus.
The air still stank of rot and scorched bone.
Chunks of flesh were embedded in stone walls, black ichor oozed from cracked pavements, and the sky above was still bruised with the residue of the ritual sacrifice. And now, atop that desecrated land, the second act of the apocalypse began.
Though the demons had barely rested since the last engagement—many of their bodies still bearing cracked carapaces, shredded wings, and missing limbs—they charged headlong into combat once more.
Meanwhile, the battered legions of the Mi Ling World, scattered and exhausted, threw themselves into position along broken barricades and half-buried walls. No horn sounded. No speeches were made. There wasn't time for grand declarations. Only blood.
It was not strategy that brought either side to battle.
It was necessity.
Neither the Abyss nor Mi Ling World had yet recovered from the previous ordeal. Their magical supplies, siege weapons, reinforcement rituals, and arcane communication networks were still in flux, en route, or jammed by interference from the swirling corrupted skies.
And yet, the brutal clash was unavoidable.
For Mi Ling, allowing the abyss to finish consolidating the polluted land meant losing one of the few remaining tools they had to contain the abyssal tide. They were desperate. And desperation meant sacrifice.
As for the demons?
They fought because they had no other option.
If they failed to fortify this foothold and cement it into an entrenched demonic outpost—one that would dilute the suppressive forces of this world—then the weakened survivors would become easy prey. There would be no mercy, no second chance, only slaughter.
So, 'don't be timid—just do it' became more than a rallying cry. It was a survival instinct carved into every demon's bones.
The difference in mentality was stark.
The warriors of Mi Ling fought with grim resolve and strained discipline, the weight of their civilization pressing down on their shoulders.
But the demons?
They were laughing.
Grinning. Growling. Sharpening their teeth.
Betting on which of their own would die first.
For the denizens of the Abyss, war was a constant. Something as routine as breathing.
This morning's battle—horrific as it was—was still considered relatively safe in their eyes.
In truth, the current danger level didn't even compare to their earliest memories—
where freshly spawned demons tore each other apart on riverbanks made of bile and rusted blades.
Back there, only one in five survived past the first day.
Here, in the rich soil of Mi Ling, where magic was abundant and flesh plentiful, the projected casualty rate was only around 50%. For abyss demons, that was practically a vacation. A paradise.
Some even brought their own rations—frozen eyeballs, souls in jars, and squirming devil and demon larvae—as if it were a festival outing.
This twisted worldview is precisely why the Abyss produces endless waves of soldiers.
Even death was more pleasant here than home.
And amidst this growing battlefield, there was one figure notably absent:
Dex.
Long before the first spear clashed against the shield, Dex had already taken his leave. The moment he received his final task reward, he vanished like a shadow in the breeze, slipping through the yet-unfinished defense grid with casual ease.
He had zero intention of participating in what came next.
To him, there was no honor in war, only the potential for unnecessary loss. And Dex had no plans to become a footnote in someone else's prophecy.
"A bit of profit is fine," he muttered as he soared high above the horizon,
"but I'm not dying over someone else's grudge match."
His real ambitions lay elsewhere.
After flying tens of thousands of kilometers away from Augustus—past mountains steeped in smoke, across river valleys tinged red with fallout, through skies where birds no longer flew—Dex began to descend.
His body became incorporeal, slipping into the soil like mercurial mist, phasing deeper and deeper into the earth, through layers of dirt, stone, and forgotten fossils.
Eventually, he reached a secluded cavern pulsing with dormant ley lines.
This was it. His sanctuary.
Here, in this ancient tomb of magic, Dex planned to enter a deep meditative hibernation, akin to deathless sleep, while he studied the legendary grimoires and god-tier tomes looted during the chaos.
These weren't the low-level scraps he usually absorbed in a single night. No, these books were alive with dangerous knowledge—infested with cursed symbols, coded paradoxes, and whispered temptations of forgotten divinities.
Some of them could drive a lesser mind to madness with a single sentence.
One tome still wept blood. Another hummed in a language that hadn't existed since before the stars. And one… stared back at him when opened.
"Delicious," Dex grinned, cracking his neck.
"Let's digest you slowly…"
With one clawed finger, he pressed a sigil into the stone floor, and a thousand runes flickered to life, sealing the cavern from the outside world. Sound, light, and magic—everything was cut off.
Only silence remained.
And in that darkness, Dex settled into stillness, wrapped in his cloak of corruption, surrounded by books that might one day let him shatter a continent with a single word.
While the world above bled, burned, and screamed…
Dex dreamed of that day.
---
Twenty Years Later
Elven Kingdom of Elsera
In the heart of south forest older than most civilizations, sunlight filtered through layers of enchanted leaves, casting golden patterns onto the pristine marble spires of Elsera's capital.
Birds sang. A soft breeze rustled through silver-white leaves. All seemed peaceful.
But for Dex, this was just another lazy, meaningless day in his long-running "Poisoning Plan for Living a Life of Waiting for Death in Various Worlds."
He lounged under the shade of an ancient tree in the outer courtyard of a sprawling villa, flicking pebbles at passing squirrels as he polished one of his horns with a cloth soaked in wine.
It had taken him several months to fully absorb all the gains from the fall of Augustus. The stolen tomes, the power siphoned from shattered wards, the remains of high-tier knowledge, and the long-dead souls that still whispered in his blood—all of it had been consumed and digested.
The benefits were undeniable. His strength had risen again, albeit not dramatically.
His failed advancement during the incident at Augustus had left him stuck—just barely brushing the edge of the [Upper Rank Demon] threshold. The world's suppressive will had intervened at the final step, stopping his evolution cold.
Still, he stood now at the very peak of the [Middle Rank Demon] class—maxed out in blood concentration, soul density, and raw physical capacity.
He was like a cauldron filled to the brim. No matter how much more heat or material he poured into it, it wouldn't boil over. Not without breaking the vessel entirely.
He needed a catalyst. A transformation. A breakthrough. Something decisive.
That's why he hadn't returned to the Abyss yet.
Despite the temptation to shed his shell and ascend back into that dark, violent womb of evolution, he lingered here instead. Enjoying his leisure. Drinking rare wine. Sleeping under golden elven trees. Seducing scholars and stabbing priests.
Reading divine manuscripts while scratching his back with cursed daggers. Hoarding things that might one day matter.
And why not? There was no real danger anymore. Not in this world.
After Augustus, the only real threat had either fled or been eaten. The forces of this world were still licking their wounds, while the demons from the Abyss were busy carving territory into scorched earth.
Dex? He had slipped away before it got messy.
Just like always.
He was low-key now. Quiet. Careful.
Well—if you ignored the drinking, gambling, occasional murder, corruption of temple girls, selling of fake relics, and distributing of addictive poisons to noble heirs... he was practically a model citizen.
Thinking about all this, he pulled out a mirror from his pocket dimension and admired himself.
A grin stretched across his face as he spoke to his reflection:
"Still the handsome boy from before. Never lost my roots. The Great Mother Abyss is truly lucky to have me."
Behind him, a melodic but tired voice interrupted his narcissism.
"What are you doing?"
Valeera was curled on a nearby garden bench, lazily chewing on a sliced fruit. The morning light danced across her long sun kissed hair, and her green eyes stared at him with equal parts amusement and confusion.
Despite having known Dex for over a decade, she still hadn't gotten used to his behavior.
One moment, he could be cold, calculating, and terrifyingly rational. The next, he'd do something so random—like declaring war on a goose for stepping on his wine bottle or performing a one-man opera in the middle of a royal hearing—that she genuinely wondered if his mind worked like anyone else's.
But she didn't hate it.
In fact… she liked it. Liked him.
In her long life—longer than most kingdoms lasted—she'd grown bored of many things.
Bored of courtship, war, politics, and eternal beauty. But Dex... Dex was unpredictable.
Sometimes charming. Sometimes vicious. Always interesting.
That, more than anything, is what drew her to him.