Chapter 222 Roy’s New Neighbor
In the eyes of humans and other species, the demons of the Abyss were all chaotic and disorderly, but this was actually a misunderstanding. The reason why such rumors spread was essentially that most humans could only come into contact with low-rank and middle-rank demons. The demons of these two ranks were indeed bloodthirsty and violent. There was no order to speak of, only destruction and ruin.
But it should be known that even unintelligent animals and wild beasts would have certain rules in their groups, let alone intelligent species like demons.
However, the order between demons was usually some specific rules formed over tens of millions of years. It was not like humans, whose laws had been engraved into words and pa.s.sed down. Moreover, demons would only obey these rules when necessary. If they were powerful enough that no one could restrain them, they could also ignore them.
High-rank demons were already the rulers of the Demon World. Although there were demon lords and demon kings above them, demon lords and demon kings usually did not care about management and left it all to the high-rank demons.
Just like Demon Lord Rogeros that Roy had encountered in the middle Abyss, he had thrown many trivial matters to the high-rank demon Edrach, who was loyal to him. He would only appear personally for things that truly needed his attention. Moreover, he would often only appear in the form of a projection clone.
It could be said that high-rank demons were the true elites of the Demon World. How could an elite cla.s.s like this allow the world they lived in to become chaotic and unmanageable?
Therefore, the so-called chaos and disorder should refer to the behavior of demons after they came to other worlds because as long as it was not the world they lived in, the demons could do anything they wanted. The Abyss was the hometown of the demons, so they had to take care of it properly… It was only until after Roy explored the lower Abyss did he discover that the resources here were indeed quite rich.
There were large numbers of mineral deposits here, such as the Abyss demon iron ore that Roy had obtained. Such ordinary minerals were everywhere in the lower Abyss, and they were not too valuable. In addition, there were many more rare minerals, such as purplish-red demon blood stones that were the color of demon blood, with something that looked like biological blood vessels covering the surface. There were also ores like Debes copper, flame mica, dark water silver, and so on distributed in the lower Abyss. These minerals containing various characteristics could be used to create demon artifacts with special attributes!
After all, demons had been at war with other races for a long time. Angels, humans, elves, dragons, elementals, and so on could be considered their enemies in the Infinite Worlds. Under these circ.u.mstances, demons could not rely solely on their bodies and magic power to fight, and they still needed necessary weapons.
The demon castles where high-rank demons lived were usually built in places with special resources. The existence of a demon castle often meant that the nearby resources belonged to this demon castle. As a high-rank demon was the master of this demon castle, as long as they extracted these resources, it meant that these resources belonged to them.
Of course, it was impossible for high-rank demons to mine resources personally, so they would often use their abilities to create demon puppets to do this laborious work. It did not matter if they did not know how to make demon puppets. There were also many powerful monsters in the lower Abyss, so they could just enslave them. Furthermore, some high-rank demons would draw summoning formations and find low-rank and middle-rank demons from the middle or upper Abyss to work for them. But there were not many cases because low-rank and middle-rank demons could not live too long in the lower Abyss. The environment here was harsher, and even the monsters were stronger than them. Once they were far away from a demon castle, they would very likely be killed… Moreover, the presence of low-rank and middle-rank demons here would generally give high-rank demons the feeling of ‘tarnished ident.i.ty’, so generally speaking, there was no way that high-rank demons would do this.
Roy and Julia observed a few demon castles from afar and found that high-rank demons mostly used demon puppets! These demon puppets were the so-called residents of demon castles. They served only the masters of the demon castles and worked day and night to earn the capital to improve their strength for the high-rank demons.
Demon puppets were actually a general term that referred to some special species created by demons. These puppets might have been pieced together from a large number of corpses and then infused with captured souls into them to make them move. They could also be made of some stone or metals. True puppets were driven by souls and magic.
Sometimes, the range of resources that a demon castle had delineated was not too clear, so there would be wars between demon castles now and then. But usually, as the masters, the two high-rank demons would not directly attack each other but instead let their puppets fight each other first. It was best if an outcome was determined. But if there was no victory or defeat, it depended on the situation whether or not the high-rank demons decided to fight each other.
It was not easy to grow into high-rank demons. High-rank demons were relatively restrained among themselves and would not easily engage in life-and-death battles. On the contrary, they had connections between each other most of the time.
In such disputes, the unlucky ones were definitely the demon puppets and enslaved monsters. Perhaps it was precisely because of this cruel method of using souls that the other species were afraid of demons. After all, no one wanted their soul to be eaten, sealed in a corpse, or to become a puppet for eternity after their death.
Roy flew in the air with Julia for a full week in the lower Abyss. After flying for around five thousand kilometers, they saw thirty demon castles before finally finding a demon castle that looked more pleasing to the eye. The architectural style of this demon castle was slightly different. Compared to the large amount of magma and flames used in other demon castles, this castle actually used a lot of demon obsidian, which were crystals containing powerful dark power. After polis.h.i.+ng, the blackness was so dense that it s.h.i.+ned. Perhaps it was because of the mineral veins of this ore nearby, so it used a great deal of demon obsidian. The moment Julia saw this demon castle, she immediately liked it. She was fond of s.h.i.+ny objects.
Moreover, this demon castle looked quite large. The castle walls covered a square kilometer, making it the largest demon castle that they had seen during this time.
What happened next was simple. Roy unleashed all his firepower. He flew above the demon castle, summoned a ma.s.sive black lightning bolt, and struck the empty s.p.a.ce in front of the castle, instantly creating a deep pit hundreds of meters in diameter. Then he shouted at the demon castle below, “Either get lost! Or die!!”
A moment later, a reverse-winged high-rank demon flew out of the demon castle and hurriedly fled into the distance, not even daring to meet Roy.
Judging from the magic power pressure emanating from the other party, this reverse-winged demon was also a very powerful high-rank demon. However, compared to a quasi-lord like Roy, he was still lacking a lot. Perhaps because he saw the power of Roy’s black lightning, he weighed it and realized that he could not win against Roy, so he simply left the territory and escaped.
Therefore, very simply, Roy became the master of this demon castle.
This kind of situation was pretty common in the lower Abyss. Of course, the bigger the demon castle, the better. But it was another matter if they could defend their territory. The masters of the same demon castle changed quite frequently.
Seeing how tactful the other party was, Roy could not be bothered to chase after the high-rank demon. He brought Julia and Fat Tiger down and entered the demon castle.
The high-rank demon left in a hurry, and it was equivalent to leaving without anything. It was naturally impossible to take away the wealth in the demon castle. When Roy and Julia entered, they saw a large number of demon puppets gathered at the castle gate. When they saw Roy, they all knelt on the ground. One of the demon puppets leading them said in a numb and hollow voice, “New master of the demon castle, we welcome your arrival!”
Roy looked and found that this demon puppet was a flesh and blood puppet. At first glance, it looked like a giant mosquito with a long tail and three pairs of legs that looked like those of an arthropod on its abdomen. Its upper body was humanoid, and it had two black compound eyes on its face. Behind it were tattered translucent wings that looked like those of a fly.
Needless to say, Roy felt disgusted, but there was nothing he could do about it. He knew that the aesthetics of many demons were distorted, and the one who created this puppet was probably the same.
“What’s your name?” Roy asked with a frown.
“Master, you can call me Cagruze! This is the name given to me by the previous master. Of course, you can also give me another name…” Cagruze said. Roy could not be bothered to change his name. “Are you the butler of this demon castle?” “I don’t know whether I am or not, Master!” Cagruze gave a strange answer.
“What do you mean?” Julia frowned.
“In this demon castle, only my soul still has a little consciousness, so the previous master ordered me to carry out his will…” Cagruze said. His voice had always been numb and hollow.
Roy understood. “Then, your duties are the same as before.”
“Yes, Master!” Cagruze replied.
Roy looked at the other demon puppets and found that they were all standing quietly behind them, and all their appearances could be described as bizarre. Roy saw rock puppets that were made of stone and caused the ground to shake as they walked. He also saw fat, bloated, and sewn-together corpse puppets that looked like Abominations. However, these puppets had no consciousness and could only pa.s.sively accept orders. Although Roy was curious about how they determined who the master of the demon castle was, it was not the time to look into this. He nodded and led Julia into the castle.
The demon castle was quite large, and there were many rooms, but most of them already had fixed purposes. Some were smelting rooms with burning magma and large cauldrons, some were forging rooms with iron hammers and anvils, and some were rooms with large numbers of magic formations engraved. It was unknown what they were for.
After walking around, they returned to the largest hall. There was an extremely huge demon seat placed here, and it seemed to be the castle lord’s throne. In the middle of the hall was a round pool filled with a strange liquid that looked like silver oil.
The moment Roy and Julia walked in, the liquid in the pool suddenly writhed up and finally turned into a humanoid appearance. It was clearly a humanoid figure made of a pile of liquid, but the details were very exquisite. This liquid person looked like a succubus, and Roy could even distinguish the shape of the armor she was wearing from the liquid.
“Delt! Delt! d.a.m.n it, are you there?” the liquid humanoid shouted at the castle lord’s throne.
Roy had been watching all along. After hearing the liquid person’s words, he suddenly realized that this thing might be a communication device, so he said, “If you’re talking about the previous master of this castle, unfortunately, he’s not here!”
After hearing Roy’s words, the liquid person was stunned for a moment and then turned around to see Roy.
If this was the common communication method used by high-rank demons in the demon castles, then Roy reckoned that he should have formed a liquid person with the same appearance in the other party’s demon castle.
“Who are you? Is Delt dead?” the succubus asked.
“He’s not dead!” Roy said. “That guy is very smart and took the initiative to give up the demon castle, so I let him leave! What about you? Who are you?”
“My name is Benia!” The succubus had a thoughtful expression on her face. “You said that Delt left voluntarily? Looks like you’re a rather powerful demon…” “Okay, the person you’re looking for isn’t here!” Roy said. “If there’s nothing else, leave!”
“Don’t be so heartless!” The succubus formed from the liquid suddenly giggled, her voice full of temptation. “I didn’t expect to meet a new neighbor. Maybe we can ‘exchange’ happily…” Before Roy could answer, Julia’s face collapsed when she heard the succubus’s tone…