Chapter 437: Extinction
Looking down from high in the sky, they could see the enormous irregular rift in the dark ground of the Demon World. This was the location of the Despair Prison.
The size of this rift was more than five square kilometers, and this was only the opening. It was said that the entire rift valley was in the shape of a trapezoid, and the bottom part was even wider.
The specific origin of this special rift valley that looked like a scar on the ground was no longer determinable. It should have been formed by the geological changes of the Demon World. What was strange was that the dark power in this rift was so rich that a thick mist formed above the rift. The color of the thick mist was even darker than the surrounding Demon World.
It was precisely because of the black mist that no one could see the situation inside the rift valley from above.
Although the name of this place was the Despair Prison, there were actually no artificial buildings inside the rift valley. According to Cerberus, the rock walls inside the rift valley were full of caves dug by the numerous whip demons living here. In addition, there were many ferocious and sinister monsters and plants living together in the rift valley. Once anyone intruded, they would be besieged by these natives.
“No one knows how deep this rift valley is!” Cerberus explained to Roy. “The farther down, the wider the rift valley becomes, and the paths will become more complicated. Even the whip demons living here will probably lose their way. Lord Osiris, are you sure you want to go down?”
“What else? Tell me everything!” Roy did not answer her and asked directly.
“Okay… Another thing to note is that your rank may not suppress and affect these whip demons!” Cerberus said.
“What do you mean?” Benia asked in puzzlement. “Are you saying that these whip demons have the courage to attack a demon lord?”
Cerberus’s three heads nodded. She said solemnly, “This is also the real reason why their lair is called a prison. As I said earlier, these whip demons are not demons of the Abyss but mutated demons caused by the environment of the Demon World. The demon bloodline in their bodies is very thin, and they don’t have the slightest reverence for high-level demons. Let alone demon lords, it’s very likely that they would crazily attack even His Majesty Mundus because to these mutated demons, they are only eliminating intruders that enter their territory…”
“Hmph, simply heresy!” Benia could not help but snort coldly.
For the Abyss demons with a very serious concept of hierarchy, weren’t these whip demons heretics? Combined with their s.a.d.i.s.tic and torturing personalities, they were basically a bunch of lunatics among demons!
“How many of these whip demons are there?” Julia asked solemnly.
“Innumerable!” Cerberus shook her heads. “It might exceed ten million!”
“How can there be so many?” Benia’s expression could not help but change when she heard this number.
Cerberus stepped on her forelimbs uneasily. “Maybe even more! You have to know that these whip demons aren’t actually that strong. Most of them are merely low-rank demons, and a few strong individuals can reach the middle-rank demon level. But even with this strength, no demon has ever driven them away and occupied this rift valley… because the reproduction ability of these whip demons is too astonis.h.i.+ng. They are demons born from eggs, but they can lay more than twenty eggs at a time. Over the years, they have acc.u.mulated an astonis.h.i.+ng number.”
“Are there many species like whip demons in the Demon World?” Roy asked with a frown.
“There are indeed many. Ever since demons discovered this world, occupied the Purgatory s.p.a.ce, and turned it into the Demon World, it has been a long time, at least tens of thousands of years. Of course, there have been many mutated demons in such a long time…” Cerberus said. “In fact, you should have realized that most of the demons here are more or less different from the demons of the Abyss. It’s just that whip demons are especially special. ”
Yes, demons were originally creatures that were capable of adapting to any environment and evolving. Back in the Darksiders world, humans had released nuclear weapons all over the world to attack the demons and angels. The entire s.p.a.ce was full of fatal radiation. At that time, many demons had evolved rapidly to adapt to the radiation environment and survive. In the Demon World here, it was naturally reasonable for a large number of mutations to occur.
Only powerful high-rank elite demons like Cerberus could survive long enough to maintain the characteristics of Abyss demons.
“Let’s go. No matter how many there are, we’ll kill any who dares to stop us!” Roy spread his wings, left Rafaro’s back, and descended from the sky.
Behind him, Julia and Benia brought Ca.s.sandra and Sareth to go down with him. Fat Tiger brought Dante’s group of three and Cerberus down.
Since there were so many whip demons, it was definitely impossible to rely on Roy alone. The more combat power, the better.
As they descended, they could see the black rift becoming larger and larger, covering an area of five square kilometers. Compared to it, Roy and the others were as inconspicuous as a sesame seed on a piece of flatbread. After pa.s.sing through the thick layer of the dark element mist, their vision suddenly brightened.
Roy flapped his wings and controlled the speed of his descent while looking around.
Just as Cerberus had said, he could see dense black caves in the rock walls of the rift valley, as though the entire rift valley had been hollowed out. After Roy and others entered, pairs of dark green lights appeared in these caves one after another.
Needless to say, they were the whip demons residing in the caves!
With shrill, jackal-like roars, the entire interior of the rift valley suddenly boiled, as though drops of water had dripped into a hot pan of oil. Thousands of whip demons flew out of their caves, and the overwhelming scene was simply shocking.
It was not until this moment that everyone finally saw the appearance of these whip demons clearly. Although they were called demons, these whip demons actually looked more like monsters. They had a pair of strange demon wings with membranes, but their bodies were like giant mosquitoes. There were two rows of symmetrical eyes on their foreheads, and each row had four. They were arranged from front to back, big to small. Their faces looked extremely strange. And their mouths were like sharp needles, as though their primary way to hunt prey was to suck blood.
The reason why they were called whip demons was because of the six legs under their abdomen that looked like long whips with fleshy thorns. These long fleshy thorns carried a dim blackish-purple light on them, and it was obvious that they were poisonous.
When hunting prey, they would use these whip-like legs to wrap tightly around the prey and rely on the poison on them to make the prey lose the ability to resist. Then the whip demons would not immediately eat the prey but bring them back to their nests and repeatedly torture them with the thorn whips until they finally died from fear and pain. Only then would they use their sharp mouths to slowly savor the blood and delicious souls of their prey.
Roy and the others’ intrusion alarmed these hordes of whip demons. The startled whip demons flew out of their caves and gathered together. The terrifying scene could cause anyone with ochlophobia to have an attack.
Perhaps it was because of the immense number of them, the food of these whip demons had always been deficient. They were always hungry, and once they found prey, they would rush forward to s.n.a.t.c.h it without care. Even though Roy had released his magic power pressure to the maximum, these whip demons still continued to surround them. Although they did not dare to rush forward to attack for the time being, anyone could sense their greed for food. This greed and hunger would eventually make them lose their minds.
“Attack. It seems like we can’t go down without reducing their numbers!” Roy said.
After receiving Roy’s order, Julia, Benia, and the others immediately attacked. When facing such hordes of living creatures, flames were extremely useful. Julia’s destruction flames attacked one after another. These incomparably violent flames blew up a large area each time, and the whip demons that were blasted could not even leave ashes behind.
Benia activated her charm magic and made the whip demons kill one another. Although the other whip demons would soon eliminate the charmed whip demons, once Benia turned in another direction, she would charm a new batch.
Ca.s.sandra also took action, but she controlled undead. The whip demons that Benia charmed turned into corpses after their deaths and naturally became the best targets for Ca.s.sandra.
Fat Tiger and Cerberus on his back continuously sprayed flames, frost, toxins, and lightning from every head, while Dante, Nero, Vergil, and Sareth used their guns to kill the ones that slipped past.
Facing such immense numbers of enemies, no one dared to relax and could only cooperate with one another.
Their killing efficiency was actually very high, but the number of whip demons did not decrease because more whip demons would join in when a portion of them died. At this moment, everyone was enveloped in a huge cage made of whip demons. Looking at it from the outside, it even felt airtight.
Roy did not make a move for the time being. He knew very well that against these many whip demons, even though he was a demon lord, he might exhaust all his magic power in the continuous battle, so he had to think of a way to solve this once and for all.
Moreover, Roy was very puzzled at this moment. Although Sparda’s soul projection pointed down here, would Sparda’s main body really be here? Even his group had to go through so much trouble, so how could Sparda stay here alone? Especially with the crazy personalities of these whip demons, even if Mundus really imprisoned Sparda here, how could Mundus guarantee that these whip demons would not tear him apart?
Roy stretched out his hand and grabbed a whip demon who slipped past the others and charged at him. He pinched the head of the whip demon, and the magic power light in his hand was continuously changing and flickering.
The Magic Power Virus… doesn’t seem to have much effect.
The Desolate Virus… doesn’t seem to be able to kill them either. Oh, right, these guys are mutants!
The Black Death? The effect isn’t too good either…
Ebola? Anthrax? Not quite right. These viruses target humans and primates. These guys are demons and have different resistances… Let’s try a virus like foot-and-mouth disease!
Roy now had a large number of different plagues and viruses, and he had obtained these viruses all from Beelzebub’s sh.e.l.l. He repeatedly caught whip demons and tested the effects of various viruses on them, hoping to find a virus that was more effective against them.
During his experiments, he relied on Julia and the others to resist the attacks of these whip demons. Julia and Benia blocked most of the whip demons that charged over to attack him.
Time pa.s.sed little by little, but Julia and the others were slowly becoming overwhelmed. They were consuming their magic power too quickly, so the group gradually began to suffer damage.
This was the representation of quant.i.ty overwhelming quality. Facing such an immense group of low-level demons, even high-level demons would feel a headache.
“Hey! Osiris, aren’t you done yet?!” Dante finally could not help shouting. Although he did not know what Roy was doing and why he was not attacking, he really could not hold on any longer. He even revealed his Sin Demon form, but he was still consuming his magic power rapidly in the face of the whip demons that were constantly charging at him fearlessly. There were even several wounds on his body.
Roy ignored his shout and concentrated on experimenting. He was currently a little annoyed because he had already tested more than a hundred viruses, but the effects were not very good. Although some viruses could kill whip demons, they were not too contagious and could not quickly kill them. Some viruses were highly contagious, but they might not necessarily be able to kill these guys.
But at this moment, Roy saw a very special phenomenon on a whip demon that he had just caught. After he injected a virus into this whip demon, it actually showed mania symptoms, and its eyes rolled over.
Roy’s heart stirred. He threw this whip demon out. As a result, he saw it attacking its own kind as though it had gone crazy. It continuously lashed its whips at its kind while constantly stabbing them with its mouthpart, looking as though it was biting them.
The ones it poked with its mouthpart soon showed the same symptoms. They became agitated and uneasy and then also attacked the other whip demons.
This is it! Roy grinned sinisterly. Then a hurricane suddenly blew around him. Some light black mist spread out from his body, fused into the wind, and then blew in all directions.
Soon, the whip demons that were charging at everyone suddenly fell into chaos because many of them were continuously attacking their own kind.
This manic behavior quickly spread to the entire group. For a time, the whip demons did not even care about attacking Roy and the others. They only crazily pounced on their kind and fought against them.
Julia and the others could finally take a breather. Benia asked Roy curiously, “Darling, what did you do?”
“Nothing much. I just found a virus that’s very effective against them!” Roy snorted coldly as he watched the whip demon corpses that were continuously falling. “It’s rabies!”
“Rabies??” Dante and Nero looked at each other. They did not expect this virus to have such an astounding effect on the whip demons…
The whip demons were already crazy. When the rabies virus spread in their group, it seemed to have the effect of adding poison to poison. Their madness became uncontrollable, and they could not even distinguish between their kind any longer.
As time pa.s.sed, this crazy mutual biting did not show any signs of stopping at all, and it spread more and more fiercely.
“Lord Osiris!” Cerberus realized something and could not help but exclaim, “Are… are you planning to exterminate these whip demons?!”