Chapter 1198
Then, the ground around Leon split open with jagged cracks, magma erupted like fountains, and the Patchwork Golem appeared silently in front of him.
Dense runes shimmered across the Patchwork Golem’s surface. In an instant, a torrent of raging fire spells churned together with Leon’s erupting magma, violently crashing into the Bone Demon’s body.
At a distance of dozens of meters, the blinding magma—at least thirty or forty meters thick—and the torrent of fire spells struck the Bone Demon. Its prized bone armor began to collapse at a terrifying speed.
The Bone Demon roared in fury, raising its arms to shield itself. Layers of bone rolled and formed two bone shields on its forearms. It braced behind the shields, eyes burning with mindless rage.
After being pummeled by Leon for over ten minutes, this creature had lost all reason—its only thought was to tear Leon to pieces.
Within the torrent of lava, a small cannon barrel extended from the Patchwork Golem’s thigh. The barrel, inlaid with four Deep Crimson Heart gems, brimmed with wild power.
A dark red glow lit up inside the barrel. Three seconds later, a terrifying force burst out, transforming into a three-meter-wide dark red beam. The beam pierced through the magma and fire torrent, slamming hard against the Bone Demon’s bone shields.
The bone shields kept rolling, constantly replenished by fresh bone from within. They could withstand the lava torrent, but faced with the dark red beam, they vaporized instantly...
The beam pierced through the Bone Demon’s forearms, melting two huge holes in them before smashing brutally into the Bone Demon’s face.
The scorching, violent beam pierced the Bone Demon’s skull in less than a blink...
In an instant, magma and fire swallowed the Bone Demon’s body, the searing power reducing it to ash in moments...
Leon put away the Patchwork Golem and turned to look at Bilbo, whose face was frozen in shock.
“Are you wondering how my Patchwork Golem showed up here? Wondering why I’m not dead?
Idiot, I’m a pureblood Hellfire Demon now.”
With that, Leon stretched out his hand. A streak of crimson light shot from his palm, striking Bilbo, who was still wrapped in magma.
Instantly, Bilbo’s terrified scream rang out.
“No... Matthew Merlin, no, you can’t—”
A blinding light flared from Bilbo’s body, and in less than a second, his shadow demon form exploded into a shower of magma...
Leon bared his teeth and roared across the battlefield.
“Idiots—wipe out anyone who dares resist! Wipe them all out!”
With the Bone Demon dead, Leon didn’t need to lift a finger for the rest. Without their lord, half the abyssal creatures instantly stopped fighting. With no leader, resistance was pointless. Better to cling to the new lord’s leg as fast as possible.
From the moment he appeared on the battlefield, Leon sensed the aura of shadow magic. Too bad there wasn’t a single Shadow Demon here—only a shadow demon showed up.
Shadow demons and Shadow Demons are completely different breeds. The former are sworn enemies of the followers of Holy Light, wielding the power of shadow, while the latter use the power of darkness.
A shadow demon who could use shadow magic—and whose spells didn’t bear the marks of abyssal magic—could only be Bilbo.
Too bad Leon was a Hellfire Demon now. Even if he spotted Bilbo, he couldn’t guarantee taking him out unless Bilbo got close. And Bilbo’s plan was so obvious Leon could figure it out with his toes.
So Leon was happy to wait—wait for Bilbo to come and try to assassinate him. He knew the assassin’s mindset all too well...
And sure enough, Bilbo first used Shadow Bind, then appeared behind Leon and tried to shred his heart with a weapon.
The tactic itself was fine—here, the accumulated shadow power was enough to bind Leon for a full second.
In the Northend World, any human mage caught by Shadow Bind would be doomed the moment it hit.
Too bad—this is the Abyss. Assassination tactics from the Northend World are useless here.
Leon is a Hellfire Demon. Pureblood Hellfire Demons are nothing like regular ones. Technically, a pureblood is an elemental creature—they don’t even have a heart...
The magma covering their bodies never goes out, so pureblood Hellfire Demons can’t die. As long as the flames burn in their eyes, they’ll rapidly recover from any injury.
Getting a hole punched through the chest? Doesn’t even matter...
And pureblood Hellfire Demons aren’t just spellcasters—they’ve got innate abilities too...
As an elemental creature, spinning your head around is no problem at all. The magma they spit out can block magic, and once it’s poured over you, you’ll lose the ability to cast spells and be burned every second.
Once your body’s covered in magma from a Hellfire Demon’s breath, their scorching rays will turn anything into a growing pile of molten rock.
Everything inside a creature turns to magma, magic becomes molten power, and in the end, you just explode into a splash of lava...
Poor Bilbo tried human mage tactics against a pureblood Hellfire Demon—he was doomed to die miserably...
A pureblood Hellfire Demon’s innate powers don’t require hands or Abyssal incantations—just open your mouth and let it out...
The battle raged on. The abyssal creatures were in a frenzy—even those who surrendered were mercilessly slaughtered...
Leon stood at the rear of the battlefield, throat feeling uncomfortable as he kept spitting out blobs of magma. He still wasn’t used to a Hellfire Demon’s breath.
It’s like gathering a mouthful of spit and spraying it out—there’s always a bit stuck in your throat, and it’s just uncomfortable...
A frenzied Crawler accidentally stepped into the magma Leon spat out. Instantly, its body was engulfed in flames, and in less than three seconds, it turned to ash and merged with the lava...
Leon kept spitting out magma. After a few unlucky abyssal creatures were burned to ash, all the others wisely kept their distance from their temperamental lord...
The war ended quickly. The abyssal armies were all rounded up, and now, the total number on both sides was less than at the start.
That’s the difference between Abyssal wars and the Northend World. In the Abyss, war is constant—every battle means heaps of abyssal creatures dying as cannon fodder, and in big wars, even demons are expendable.
All those dead abyssal creatures save on the Abyss’s scarce resources, and they offer up plenty of souls for the demon lords.
And most of the souls from creatures dying in the Abyss end up in the hands of the world’s ruler—the Demon Overlord.
Whether it’s the Abyss or Hell, souls are always the favorite thing for demon lords and devil lords—especially the Demon Overlord. They’re almost indifferent to the Abyss’s resources now; the only thing that helps them advance is the souls of living beings.
Sleeping is another way to cut down on consumption. Every time they wake up, the souls gathered from war in the Abyss are enough for a Demon Overlord to gorge themselves. If nothing’s happening, they just go back to sleep and slowly digest those souls.
So anywhere outside the Abyss, if you know the name of a demon lord or Demon Overlord and offer enough blood and souls, you’re guaranteed a response.
Leon ignored the aftermath of the war. Among his army, plenty of crazed land-grabbers helped him expand and manage his territory.
As the lord, all Leon had to do was wait for a flood of precious resources to be offered up to him.
After diluting a bottle of pure mana water dozens of times and tossing it to his subordinates, Leon left everything to them and slipped into the alchemy lab rebuilt for the nineteenth time by his Evil Black Dwarves.
Three days later, Leon lost control of his burning flames and accidentally let a drop of magma fall to the floor—once again, the alchemy lab was reduced to ruins.
Leon walked out of the flames, his Hellfire Demon face a little charred. Without a word, he spat out a bright jet of magma, burning the ruined lab flat—no need to tear it down again...
Leon turned to another backup alchemy lab. Once he was gone, the terrified Evil Black Dwarves didn’t dare say a word—they quickly restored the fiery ruins and rebuilt the lab with their best fire-resistant materials. Not that it helped; in a few days, it’d be ruins again.
Time flew by. After claiming new territory, Leon’s domain stretched five thousand kilometers—rivaling some demon lords’ lands, even though it wasn’t fertile or rich in resources.
To the west, east, and south, all the neighboring lands belonged to demon lords. Leon holed up in his lab, leaving his subordinates—who’d gained pure mana water and awakened demon bloodlines—completely clueless.
Ever since one demon went to ask Leon’s opinion and ran into him coming out of a burned-down lab, that unlucky guy was incinerated—and no one ever dared bother Leon with trivialities again...
But the mad rush to expand territory couldn’t stop—pure mana water, impossible to find in the Abyss, was at stake. So the crazed followers set their sights on the north.
With demon lords to the west, east, and south, no one dared stir up trouble there—so north it was. The farther north they went, the more barren the land became. Even goblins, who’d eat anything and even their own kind, refused to migrate north.
Less than two thousand kilometers north lay the desert. Besides sand-dwelling desert demons and sand beasts that even ate sand to survive, nothing else lived there.
The only thing of value was the ore that occasionally surfaced from the shifting sands—dense, hard minerals used as foundations for demon lords’ steel fortresses...
To build their lord’s fortress—and stockpile materials for their own future strongholds—the crazed expansion and warfare kept going...
The armies grew larger, pushing ever northward.
After a thousand kilometers of expansion, the desert’s special ores were delivered to Leon as spoils of war.
The moment Leon saw the ore, he was stunned. The demons kneeling before him panicked when he didn’t speak and quickly confessed the truth.
“Great lord, these ores are incredibly hard—they’re the foundation material for your steel fortress. That’s what those little black dwarves said.
They said laying this under the steel fortress would block underground threats. Even the strongest desert demons couldn’t tunnel up into your fortress..."
Leon gripped the ore, and the flames on his palm blazed up, magma and fire wrapping around the ore, burning it fiercely.
At level thirty-eight, the fire and magma flowing over Leon’s body were terrifyingly hot. Even a level thirty-plus burrower would be reduced to ash in three seconds from a single drop.
But this ore—after burning it at full power for over ten seconds, only a tenth of the impurities were gone. The dark-gold metal left behind didn’t shrink at all, no matter how much fire he used.
When the flames faded, Leon stared at the dark-gold ore in his hand, his expression complicated.
Eternal Dark Gold—famed for forging shields. Add Eternium, and you get an artifact immune to elemental forces. The wilder the power, the stronger Eternal Dark Gold’s resistance.
In the future, Sanctuary Towers in the Northend World will have a coating of Eternal Dark Gold and Eternium to shield against void storms.
Records in the desolate library say that when Sanctuary Towers were built, they scoured the entire Northend World for Eternal Dark Gold—and even nearby planes—just to get enough for that coating.
Except for a few spots in the Endless Sea, the continent itself produces no Eternal Dark Gold.
There are records of this precious metal in the Abyss too, but not much. Even when powerful mages built bases in the first two hundred layers, they barely found any.
Some mages ventured into the four or five hundredth layers and ignited divine fire, but none went deep enough to dig up a Demon Overlord’s fortress foundation.
In fact, even those powerful mages who ignited divine fire only snuck into the deep Abyss, tiptoeing around sleeping Demon Overlords’ domains, always careful not to use Sky Rank power.
If you fought a Demon Overlord deep in the Abyss, unless you were as strong as a god or demon, you’d never make it out alive...
Now, seeing Eternal Dark Gold here in the lower Abyss—just used as foundation stone for demon lords’ steel fortresses...
Leon was completely thrown off...
Damn it—if the Sanctuary Towers had been built with bricks fused from Eternium and Eternal Dark Gold, even the world-ending storms could’ve been stopped...
"Dig—dig as hard as you can! If anyone tries to stop you, wipe them out. Empty the whole desert if you have to.
Anyone who digs up more than ten thousand pieces this size gets a bottle of precious bloodline potion as a reward!